TACTics Journal
A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners
In this week’s issue:
Connections
(1) Kathy Suerken’s On the Move!, Cheryl A. Edwards
(2) Experiences from the Home Front, Javier Arevalo
(3) A Request from Kathy, Kathy Suerken
(4) Classroom Literature to Life Examples, Cheryl A. Edwards
Editors’ Notes
(5)
CONNECTIONS
(1) Kathy Suerken’s
on the Move!
From Cheryl A. Edwards
“To love what you do and know
that it matters…what could be more fun?”
Kathy leaves for
but only long enough (24 hours)
to give a presentation to—and strategize
with—a group of TOC business
consultants who want to launch TOCFE,
From there it’s off to
third group—a total of over 100
participants!
Then, on to
Ministry of Education. She will also meet with a
software company very
interested in Yani.
Finally, she stops in the
privileged to work with the TOCFE core
leadership team and Mar Gatus, who
continues to build the Rotary/Business
connection to TOCFE.
(2) Experiences from the Home Front
Javier Arevalo,
My daughter Estefania is 7 years old and
she attended the TOCFE
conference last year in
Goal at home with the sample given to me for trials and showing in
In the last couple of days, as she finished this story, we have
had the
experience to start parenting
differently. It is more difficult and it is
definitively a change of pace here for
our family. Now we have a kid really
involved with the tools. She demands
that her side be heard and respected
and for a parent that is
sometimes hard to do. Unconsciously we have
trained ourselves for the quick
solutions, and sometimes they require
authority, which in the end is just
imposing. I wanted to share a couple of
stories because I thought it would
add to the set of examples that we are
gathering from around the world.
The First Story. This past Saturday, Ana
Maria, my wife, and I were invited
to a wedding of a close friend
from work. We were discussing the event and
invitation at dinner on Friday and
thinking of ways to plan for Estefania to
stay at my brother’s or somewhere
for the night. Estefania had other plans.
She said that she would really like to go to the wedding with us.
I said that
would be fine, as I did not mind
having to leave the party early if she fell
asleep. (These events usually last
well into the night.) She mentioned that
she already knew what outfit she
would use. She has a Flamenco dancer
dress from
but we deemed it not suited or
appropriate for our night out. We shared
with her the branches, positive
and negative about using the dress. Still she
insisted she would only wear that
dress. We pressed on and the tension
grew. Well, we decided we had to
find a way out where all of us would feel
good. We continued to look at the
situation from our points of view, then we
decided to try the cloud.
D: Use the Sevillana dress for the party
D’: Not use the Sevillana dress for the
party
B: Be elegantly dressed
C: Be dressed comfortably and appropriately
A: Enjoy the wedding party all together
Her B-D assumption was that she did not have anything else
more elegant to
wear. (We agreed)
Our C-D’: assumption was that the place usually gets really
cold with airconditioning
and the dress is bulky and heavy
(we know how she likes to play
around, run, etc.)
She decided that the solution was that she should have
something else that
was elegant enough for her to go
to the party with us.
We agreed we would go out and look for a nice dress for her to
wear on
Saturday. It took us all day to find
her a dress and a pair if shoes. She had
grown out of her last pair. But
just seeing her happy eyes last night, as she
waited for the groom and bride to
enter the room, was priceless.
It is really expensive to become a TOCFE parent! You have to
invest all you
got, but what you get is all
around happiness. We did have fun with her
coming to the party with us. Yes,
we did leave early enough as she fell asleep
on my lap!
The Second Story just happened. Estefania
was finishing her homework.
She was writing about Halloween. She wrote the word “ghost” with
the H
after the O. We pointed out the
mistake and she said she is sure the H
goes there. Without too much
fuss, Ana Maria suggests, “Why don't you use
a tool?” (She meant the
dictionary.) Estefania pulled a small whiteboard and
started writing. We asked her about
the tool we could use to solve problems
when we disagree or have different
opinions. She wrote:
D: H after the O
D’: H before the O
B: To do the way I think
C: Not to do it bad (Do it right)
A: Be right about Gohst (that is how she
wrote it in the cloud)
By: Estefania, my daughter (she wrote)
Her solution was that I would look it up in the dictionary
and she would use it
as shown.
No fuss or argument of who is right. Again, all it took was a
cloud and to let
her be. It is funny and
enlightening just to see her grow this way.
Regards and with my gratitude to all in TOCFE,
Javier
(3) A Request from Kathy
From Kathy Suerken <suerken@cox.net>
One of our team members needs YOUR help!
Sandra Fierro has a very important upcoming presentation (early
December)
to a secondary school group and
needs as many relevant curriculum examples
as possible. As we know,
authentic, less than perfect examples are very
effective in such situations.
Please e-mail any examples you have to Cheryl Edwards at
be available from the TOCFE
library.
(4) Classroom Literature to Life Examples
From Cheryl A. Edwards
Mike has found a way to make a connection with the literature that students
read in the classroom to the
examples of the same concepts in life. Mike
says, “There are lots of places
where ‘connects’ to any piece of literature
can be found.” He puts in phrases of a poem
into the Google™ search box
and he comes up with uses of the
phrase in lots of different places. It
shows that it can be easy for
teachers to go to the Internet and find their
own examples of connections to
real life. Try it out, it really works!
EDITORS’ NOTES
(5)
Feel free to share with us. Send your responses, applications of
the thinking
processes, lessons, announcements, and
etc. by mail to: Cheryl A. Edwards,
to
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