TACTics
Journal
A Publication for and by TOC
for Education Practitioners
October 25, 2002
In this issue:
Connections
(1) Spanish TOCFE Webpage!, Francis Mejia Conde
(2) TOCFE Latin America, Kathy Suerken
Quote
(3) From Tony J. Ranada, SVD
Editors’ Notes
(4) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A.
Edwards
CONNECTIONS
(1) Spanish TOCFE Webpage!
Dear Cheryl,
I would like to share with you
and all of the TOCFE family about our new
Spanish TOCFE Webpage, http://www.tocfe.com. Our webmaster is
Hernán Sedano, from Colombia. He
has been working on this for a few weeks
and we invite you and all to
visit the page and see the great results.
We will surely appreciate any
and all contributions and/or comments that will
help us enhance and develop our
new webpage so that we may share them
with the entire TOCFE family in
Latin America.
Thank you,
Francis Mejia
(2) TOCFE LATIN AMERICA
From Kathy Suerken
“All things are possible… pass
the word.”
(Title of a book by Barbara
Ohrbach).Following my participation in a national Mexican TOCFE Conference in
Monterrey Sept 27-29 that was
attended by 250 educators, I traveled to
Bogota, Colombia for the first
Regional Latin American TOCFE Conference,
Oct 2. This inaugural event was
attended by over 60 delegates from five
countries: Venezuela, Costa
Rica, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. I have some
empathy on what it takes to
organize a multi-national event from a distance.
Rafael and Francis Conde, along
with Javier Arevalo also of Venezuela, did an
exemplary job in collaborating
with their TOCFE Colombian colleagues.
In addition to background on
TOCFE, testimonials and a preview of the new
TOCFE e-learning site,
participants of the conference were given a special
treat—a visit and speech from
Eli!
Of significant global
importance was the announcement that Hernan Cadona,
a TOC Colombian businessman,
has created a Latin American TOCFE web
page. Not only has he
translated much of the International home page, he
has as well created new ones
tailored to the Latin American culture. Hernan
has even offered to translate
TACTics into Spanish every week. WOW! He
so represents this
all-volunteer TOCFE Latin American team who combine an
unstoppable synergy of vision
and expertise from both education and
business.
The conference was followed by
a two day facilitator training attended by
over 30 people. Team Latin
America is primarily using the training material
developed by Khaw Choon Ean of
Malaysia. Their reason is because her
material enables an excellent
introductory class that gets good immediate
results with teachers and which
can also be taught in accelerated learning
sessions totally about 18
hours—an action that removes the obstacle of the
time required to properly teach
the more generic TACT seminar.
In TOC we know that successful
events are defined by outcomes.
Conferences and trainings in
and of themselves are not always enough to
generate intended effects.
Therefore, these events in Bogota are being
combined with RIGOROUS
follow-up by this fervent group of visionary
people who are just determined
to bring positive change to their countries.
And thus, so far and in just 3
weeks:
1. Ecuador: Sandra Fierro is
already working with 40 teachers from 3
schools. As you may recall from
a previous TACTics edition, Sandra is a
teacher who was inspired to use
TOC in her classroom after a seminar
taught to her two years ago by
Alejandrina de Gaza of Mexico. In
Sandra’s quest for more TOC
knowledge, she took the initiative to create
the means to get to this
conference.
2. Costa Rica: A workshop will
be conducted Nov 2nd and Nov 9th with 30
participants. Yamileth Garita
and Nelson Barrientos, who attended the
facilitator training will start
their teaching with Rocio Gomez´s support.
Another workshop for 40
teachers will be taught by them in December.
3. Colombia: In Rafael Conde’s
words: “A training workshop for teachers will
be held on the week from Nov
17th to Nov 23rd with 45 schools from the
Secretary of Education in
Bogota, involving 800 teachers. This week is
planned by Alma Guevara who had
the support from Luz Marina
Schotborg and Alejandro
Fernández to persuade the 45 principals. We
are going to conduct multi
workshops with our new facilitators on board.
Alejandro, Luz Marina, Francis,
Maria Elena Ortiz, Andres Hurtado, and
myself along with the
collaboration of new facilitators Olga Lucía,
Hernán, Marino Cabrera, Alma
Guevara and some other teachers who
participated in our training
workshop. Rafael adds, “Alma wants to have
some kids from Colombia in the
next TOCFE International Conference
next May in Florida.”
As you know, this year we began
AGOAL Academy (Avraham Goldratt
Opportunities As Leaders) for
children 12-20. The inaugural class was held
in conjunction with our annual
International Conference. One of the
members of this Academy is Ana
Maria Conde who has written an essay
about it on the Spanish web
page: www.tocfe.com
Bernie, my Administrative
Assistant, and I were excitedly viewing this essay
a few days ago. Neither of us
speak Spanish but somehow we were able to
deduce the essence of it. At
one point, Bernie noted: “un mundo mejor.“
That means a better world!
Which just goes to show that
some things transcend the obstacles of
cultures and even seemingly
unknown words. In Latin America a group of
people empowered by a vision
are transcending all kinds of obstacles in their
quest for a better world and,
while they show us that the journey alone is
worth the trip, they also are
revealing, “that all things are possible. Pass the
word.”
QUOTE
(3) From Tony J. Ranada, SVD
Here’s a quote from Thomas
Huxley that illustrates the Process of Ongoing
Improvement (POOGI).
“The rung of the ladder was
never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a
man’s foot long enough to put
the other somewhat higher.”
EDITORS’ NOTES
(4) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards
Thanks to all for sharing with
us this week. 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 cedwards@cedarville.net or
bucknek@earthlink.net.
To view TACTics in its intended
formatting, visit our web site at
www.tocforeducation.com and click on “What’s New.”