TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

October 31, 2003

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) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

CONNECTIONS

(1) News of Marina Rodriquez and her TOCFE Team

Extraordinaire in the Secretariat of Public Education, Nuevo

Leon, Mexico

By Kathy Suerken <suerken@cox.net>

Since 1998, TOC has been taught to over 4,000 teachers in 1,250 schools of

Nuevo Leon. In order to achieve a process of ongoing improvement in the

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 Leon student body of over 800,000 children.

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, Marina has received her Master’s Degree from Escuela Normal

Superior del Estado with a thesis on TOC for Education. Within Nuevo Leon,

she is one of only 181 educators who have earned a master’s degree in

combination with a thesis. Congratulations Marina!

 

READERS’ FEEDBACK: The Mending Wall

(2) Cal Haliburton, USA

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) Don Evans, USA

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) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

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., Cedarville, Michigan 49719, USA. Or send hyperlink to

cedwards@cedarville.net or bucknek@earthlink.net.

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