TACTics Journal
A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners
In this week’s issue:
Connections
(1) News of Marina Rodriquez and her TOCFE Team, Kathy Suerken
Readers’ Feedback: The Mending Wall
(2) Cal Haliburton
(3) Don Evans
Editors’ Notes
(4)
CONNECTIONS
(1) News of Marina Rodriquez and her
TOCFE Team
Extraordinaire in the Secretariat of
Public Education, Nuevo
By Kathy Suerken <suerken@cox.net>
Since 1998, TOC has been taught to over 4,000 teachers in 1,250
schools of
Nuevo
delivery and application of TOC,
Marina and her SEP team have focused on a
holistic approach for all
stakeholders of a school. Therefore, every
teacher, student, and parent in 57
schools have received TOC training within
the last 12 months! These
teachers and almost 10,000 of their students
have been directly and explicitly
trained by the SEP facilitator team in how
to use TOC tools in content.
The SEP TOCFE team has visited each school 4
times over the past year to ensure
the tools are being used and to formally
record the impact--this
documentation still being completed.
Additionally, the training of all Civics and Ethics (Secondary)
and Values
Education (Primary) teachers within the state is ongoing. The teachers so
far trained through this program
reach approximately 30% of the entire
Nuevo
Recently, a page on TOC and the cloud was published in an education
magazine, of which a million copies
were printed by the SEP and delivered
not only to school children but
also to parents.
Meanwhile,
Superior del Estado with a thesis on TOC
for Education. Within Nuevo
she is one of only 181 educators
who have earned a master’s degree in
combination with a thesis.
Congratulations
READERS’ FEEDBACK: The Mending Wall
(2)
Cheryl and Kay,
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this series with Michael, Judy and
Jonathan. Judy’s
analysis and descriptive and
evocative words bring me a better
understanding of poetry. “Body Language”
of poetry—If only I’d such a
teacher.
I’ve been working some examples of the cloud as a structure for
lesson
planning. Rami
outlined this use and structure in an earlier TACTics.
The
story line is paraphrased and
summarized from Garret Hardin’s article in
Science (1968), “The Tragedy of the Commons,”
<www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243>. Other
story lines
could be drawn from that article.
STORY LINE
Picture a very large pasture where all can graze their cattle. The
cattle
herders are independent,
self-reliant people. They make their own decisions.
All of the herders decide what to do with their own herd. Adding
to their
own herd is a gain for them, but
everyone shares any loss to the common
pasture.
Each cattle herder will attempt to keep as many cattle as possible
on the
commons. They each decide to add
more cattle to their own herd. This
arrangement may work satisfactorily for
generations because wars,
poaching, and disease keep the
numbers of people and cattle below the
carrying capacity of the land.
During a period of social stability, as the cattle herders try to
maximize
their gain by adding cattle to
their herd, a time comes when the herds
overgraze the pasture. The quality of
the pasture declines. The herders
work harder to increase their
herds, the pasture is ruined, and all of the
herds are lost.
Each cattle herder is presented with the conflict:
A-Have a good future
B-Make a better living
D-Increase my herd
C-Preserve the pasture
D’-Don't increase my herd
The cloud may be generalized to:
A-Have a good future
B-Improve your life
D-Take more
C-Leave something for others
D’-Don’t take more
The third step is for students to personalize the cloud:
In class it might be—
A-Have a good future
B-Improve your life
D-Demand extra attention in class
C-Leave something for others
D’-Don't demand extra attention in class
At the dinner table or the buffet it might be:
A-Have a good future
B-Improve your life
D-Take more than I can eat
C-Leave something for others
D’-Don’t take more than I can eat
These steps follow the process outlined by Rami:
Text Cloud to Generalized
Cloud to Personalized Cloud. Discussion continues by surfacing
assumptions
in the logic of the clouds and
then searching for solutions.
The discussion of the “Mending Wall” attracted me to this example
because
fences and walls are solutions
often used to prevent deterioration of a
common resource in cultures of
self-reliance and independent decision
making. Yet fences and walls
continue to be conflicting entities. Why?
I’m intrigued with the possibilities of the cloud as lesson
plan/lesson
structure and wonder if other people
have used it?
(3)
Jonathan’s cloud reminds me of another generic of mine that pits
Act, Don't
Act as the conflict. The win-win that I used was to Pursue Change
in Keeping
with the System’s Purpose or
Mission.
For Jonathan’s cloud (Freedom/Act Preserve/Don’t Act) can perhaps
be
resolved by purposeful action, action
balanced with purpose and mission, or
as Frost said,
"Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence"
Why not a wall with a gate? Or a wall that
functions and beautifies? Or
sometimes, no wall at all? Action
informed by purpose and mission. Helpful?
It has been for me.
EDITORS’ NOTES
(4)
Thanks to all for sharing. We would love to hear from you, so 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.,
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