TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

October 12, 2001

 

In this week’s issue:

Connections

   (1)     The 6th International TOCFE Conference, 2002!, Kathy Suerken

Elementary/Secondary TACTics

   (2)     A Content Cloud, Petra Pouw-Legêne

Quote

  (3)  Branch Rickey

Editors’ Notes

  (4)   Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

 

CONNECTIONS

(1)        The 6th International TOCFE Conference, 2002!

From Kathy Suerken

 

Imagine yourself spending 4 days in a gated and peaceful parkland setting by a lake.  Imagine enjoying the culture of Sherwood Forest just outside your gated seclusion.  Imagine experiencing unique and profound learning opportunities to help you achieve your professional goals in life while surrounded by friends who share them.

 

Turn this imagination into reality by attending the 6th International TOC for Education Conference at the University of Nottingham in Nottingham, United Kingdom on July 8-11, 2002.

 

Tentative List of Social Events:

Monday, July 8:                        A medieval feast followed by a play written and performed by Francois Moll and a group of International TOCFE students.  Event hosted on university campus.

Tuesday, July 9:                        A barbecue social near the sports complex on the university campus.

Wednesday, July 10:                        Evening theater/shopping expedition into Nottingham.

 

In addition to many cultural experiences, in the land of Sherwood Forest are also feasible day and overnight trips to London, Stratford, Oxford, etc.  We will work with local tourist agencies to provide that information to help you plan possible excursions before and/or after the conference.

 

Here are some of the necessary conference details and there will be more to come in future TACTics and soon on our web page:

 

Conference dates:                        July 8 to July 11, 2002 (July 11 concludes at noon)

 

Conference Venue:                        University of Nottingham in Nottingham, United Kingdom

 

Location:            Nottingham is approximately 100 miles north of London.  A Nottingham City bus runs at frequent intervals from the conference venue to the center of town and costs around  $1.50. 

 

Airports: 

East Midlands Airport (closest):    The international hub for East Midlands Airport is Amsterdam.  Commuter flights are also available via London.  A one-way shuttle taxi to the university campus from East Midlands Airport takes approximately 20 minutes and costs around $25.

 

Birmingham Airport:            Approximately one-hour drive to University of Nottingham.

 

London Airports:            London is served by three major airports: Gatwick, Heathrow and Lutton.  If flying directly into London, you have several options to get to Nottingham.  In addition to a commuter flight to East Midlands, there is also a good rail link to Nottingham, which takes 2 hours.  By car, the University Campus is in easy access of the M1.

 

Accommodations:

If you want to stay on site at the University, TOCFE will have a private quadrangle of residence halls that includes a private dining hall with elegant long wooden tables for family-style breakfast and evening meals.  Attached to this dining hall is our own private pub!  Lunches will be served at workshop locations. 

 

Local attendees will register through David Higgins.  International Attendees will register and pay through USA dollars through the home office in USA.

 

Prices for on site accommodations include room and ALL meals throughout the conference (including special social events) as well as daily morning and evening refreshments.  There are three types of rooms within the quadrangle available on a first come first serve basis.  The price range for international attendees is from approximately $100 per night per person to approximately $130 per night per person, depending on the type of room.  The university has worked with government authorities to waive local VAT for our event so there will be no taxes collected for on site accommodations.

 

For international attendees who prefer to stay at a hotel in Nottingham, there will be a conference daily fee of approximately $35 to cover lunch as well as morning and afternoon refreshments.  TOCFE is working with the University to provide information on local hotels and that information will be published soon.

 

TOCFE conferences get better and better and your UK conference committee (David Higgins, Galina Dolya and Linda Trapnell) and I look forward to meeting those expectations in the enchanting land of Nottingham.

 

ELEMENTARY/SECONDARY TACTICS

(2)        A Content Cloud

Petra Pouw-Legêne, Holland

 

My name is Petra Pouw-Legêne and I live in The Netherlands.  During the first weekend of September, I gave my first pilot-TOCFE-course.  I invited four friends to our house; three are teaching in primary schools, one is counseling children with learning problems.  They stayed overnight, which was fun.  We started Friday evening with Session 1 and moved onto Session 2 somewhere halfway into the next day.

 

I wanted them to learn to use the cloud the way Eleanor May-Brenneker taught me, after she had been in Detroit this summer (Content).  Because the four friends are teachers, I thought it a nice start to learn making a cloud by using an already existing story.  It had to be fun and relevant and also something that could be transferred to another (larger) area (content). So I browsed through my bookshelves looking for a children’s' book.  I found the Dutch translation of E.B. White: Charlotte's Web.

 

On the very first page, a little girl gets terribly upset, because her father, who is a farmer, is about to kill a newborn piglet, who apparently is too small:  It will be too much trouble and too expensive to take care of it and it will prevent the other piglets in the litter to get the best treatment.  The girl thinks it's unfair to kill the animal only because it is small and she almost starts a fight with her father.

 

I read the story aloud.  There are quite a lot of assumptions of both parties involved.  Then I stopped before the book tells which decision the father takes.

 

We made the following cloud:

A:    Do the right thing to animals.

B:     Protect what is small and fragile.

D:    The piglet stays alive.

C:     Be able to raise a healthy litter.

D':   The piglet does not stay alive.

 

Assumptions B-D:

         I think it's unfair.

         You let me live as well, even though I am little.

         Equal rights for humans and animals.

 

Assumptions C-D':

         It will die anyway.

         It is the best for the litter.

         I have experience.

         It means a lot of extra work for me.

 

When we discussed the assumptions, there were a few which were not necessarily true.  For example:  The piglet does not have to die.  It does not have to be extra work for dad.

 

Injection:

Put the little piglet apart and have the little girl raise it by hand.

 

And, that is exactly what happens in the story.  When I continued reading, four people in the room smiled...

 

The next morning at breakfast I mentioned the cloud and asked the women to transfer that little story to a bigger setting.  Where else in our society can we apply this issue?

 

Within a few minutes we had an interesting Socratic discussion about the differences between the animal protection organisation(s) and the bio-industry; the problem of how there had been no win-win solution in solving the problem of mouth and foot disease in England and Holland, and the issue of BSE.  And, how important it is to be a good steward over nature.

 

Together we came up with the following generic cloud:

A:    Have a good relationship between man and animal.

B:     Absolute respect for the animal.

D:    Be able to let the animal live.

C:     Be a good steward in relation to animals.

D':   Be able to kill the animal

 

Then each of us gave an example of this generic cloud out of our own experience.

 

My students were very much aware of the value of this way of dealing with a problem.  They said: “This way I feel very much involved.”  “It is not something that is ‘far away from my bed.’”  “It really made me think.”  “It is nice to work out such a conflict together.”  And etc.

 

Before we knew it, our breakfast lasted about one and a half hours.  They all agreed, that TOCFE was not only a tool in the classroom but everywhere, even at breakfast.  And my thoughts were: Where better to have your classroom than at the breakfast table?

 

QUOTE

(3)        "Luck is the residue of design." —Branch Rickey

 

EDITORS’ NOTES

(4)        Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

 

The 6th International TOCFE ConferenceNottingham, United Kingdom … July 8-11, 2002 … sounds great!  Petra, thanks for your contribution.  To all of you in the TOCFE family, feel free to share with us.  Send your responses, applications of the thinking processes, lessons, announcements, and etc. by mail to:  Cheryl A. Edwards, 2253 S. Hill Island Rd., Cedarville, Michigan 49719, USA.  Or send hyperlink to:  redwards@sault.com, or bucknek@earthlink.net.

 

 

To view TACTics in its intended formatting, visit our website at

www.tocforeducation.com and click on “What’s New.”