TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

November 7, 2003

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) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

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 Asia on Nov 4, 2003 for 3 weeks. First stop will be Japan,

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,

Japan.

From there it’s off to Singapore to teach two seminars organized by

Christina Cheng. (Khaw Choon) Ean will also be there teaching an additional

third group—a total of over 100 participants!

Then, on to Malaysia for two days of meetings organized by Ean in the

Ministry of Education. She will also meet with a software company very

interested in Yani.

Finally, she stops in the Philippines where, along with Ean, she will be

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, Venezuela

My daughter Estefania is 7 years old and she attended the TOCFE

conference last year in Florida. She recently finished working with Yani's

Goal at home with the sample given to me for trials and showing in Venezuela.

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 Sevillana, Spain (a gift from her grandmother). It is beautiful,

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

cedwards@cedarville.net. She will put the collection in a folder and they will

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) Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards

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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