TACTics Journal
A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners
In this week’s issue:
When Pigs Fly!
(1)
Reaching Out, Khaw Choon Ean
Connections
(2)
8th Annual TOCFE Conference
Editors’ Notes
(3)
Kay Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards
WHEN PIGS FLY!
(1) Reaching
Out
Khaw Choon Ean,
TOCFE Director for
“To move the world, we must first move ourselves.” —Socrates
Hi
everyone, greetings from
New
Year started with a great development. To date, in
been included in our Year One Transition Program and the
tools are also
being used for teaching social science
subjects like Local Studies, History,
Geography,
Basic Economics and Moral Education in both primary and
secondary schools. Thousands and thousands
of teachers have been
introduced to TOC thinking tools, most
adapting it in their classrooms
according to their own capabilities and
resources, reaching out to the
millions of schoolchildren in their care.
It is a wonderful vision and mission.
It
is of course good to know that the information is already out there and
the applications are being tried out in real situations.
However, what comes
uppermost to mind next is the aspect of
sustainability, which is about ways
of meeting and integrating with existing situations so
that the practice of
using the tools becomes a habit of the
mind. I believe that one of the
salient factors in this is that teachers
need a rich resource base that they
can fall back on to support the use of the tools and
children need to be
constantly motivated until it is an
intrinsic habit.
So
it seems logical to give energy and thought to this pursuit of
sustainability and reaching out to all these
people out there who know about
TOC and want to know more. I sat back and
thought about what could be
done to sustain the interest and provide a resource for
children, parents and
teachers.
In
June 2003, I zeroed in on getting into the newspapers as a regular
columnist or into the educational
supplements of the newspapers that enter
the lives of millions of people—into homes, into schools,
and into offices
each day. Appearance in an established newspaper gives a
great deal of
credibility. But how does one make such an
inroad?
Well,
an opportunity came by late last year. (Is it luck or wishing hard?)
The
editor of the New Straits Times,
the national English language
newspaper here wanted something different
than the usual run of lessons
provided in the educational pull-out
supplement for schools. The next thing
I
knew, I was approached to provide a proposal for such a project and after
meeting up with the newspaper…people it
was all systems go!
Kathy
Suerken, CEO and President of TOCFE, made an Asian tour in
November
2003. She made a lightning visit to
we managed to squeeze in a press interview, which
resulted in launching a
feature on our “Thinking Mission” in the
newspaper on the day (6 January
2004).
The first of the series of TOC educational articles
appeared in the
New
Straits Times, a national English language newspaper, established since
1845
(!) by the British colonial government and is currently distributed
throughout
more can anyone ask, when the articles walk into a million
hands each day?
It
was not easy to get the articles together. Only those who have had to
meet writing deadlines know what I mean. And working with
word limits and
page confines can be agony. On top of that, I had to
prepare ahead 10
installments for primary school and 10
installments for secondary school
within a short time. The term the agony
and the ecstasy” suddenly made a
lot of sense. I was ecstatic about the project but it was
agony to put it
together. Today’s generation puts it as
“no pain, no gain!”
But
oh, when it came out, the satisfaction was truly immense. The sort of
want-to-jump-to-roof-and-touch-it-and-yell
sort of feeling! Important is
the fact that first, the copyright remains with the
writer, so it CAN be
shared and second, it is in English and
so can be shared GLOBALLY.
And,
“What is on the pages?” I believe would be your next question. When I
sat down to get down to the job, the problem was not
having materials but
what to put in. Although writing the proposal had helped
provide the
guidelines, deciding what to finally put in
was an enormous task. I told Kathy
that it was just as well my experience in writing be as a
short-story writer
and not a novelist! Even then, eventually the editors had
to make it even
shorter. In newspaper lingo, it would be
how to say the most in the fewest
words possible and keep the attention
of the readers.
It
was decided that the primary school page would be a picture story with
regular “characters.” I managed to get a
frog into the story too (I collect
frog collectibles so I call this combining business with
pleasure). They even
gave me the page in colour; so I
was able to indulge in another pleasure in
the artwork. A journalist said it should be therapeutic colouring the
pictures and she was right.
I
wish to thank Gila Glatter for giving permission to use her team’s ideas for
young children if necessary so I
didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Rami
Goldratt came to the rescue too by giving
permission to use our general
domain stuff that he had done. Having a
network definitely is a plus point
here. Eventually, with permission, YANI will also make a
guest appearance!
For
the secondary school page, the main anchor was the Never Ending Story
(NES) that was created in 2000 by Kathy
Suerken and Cheryl Edwards. I
thank Kathy for giving me the support,
assurance and go-ahead and this
version of the NES is presented as
episodes each week in a story-form
dealing with the focus of the week.
For
both the sections the idea was not just to teach and inform informally,
but also to provide a resource as well as to entertain,
because teaching and
learning should be a pleasurable
experience. There is the main focus area
(picture story in primary and episode in NES) accompanied by
sidebars for
teachers, parents and a little “It’s Your
Turn To Think” exercise for
students. All fitted into an A3-sized
page pullout each week. Phew!
Well,
friends all over the world…the stuff, though in context of situations
has been “Malaysianised,” the
content is universal because it is based on
TOC. We hope to put it on the website so that it can be
used by whomever
wishes to. You can be sure a complete
set of both primary and secondary
school will make it to Serbian shores
for the conference.
The
step to get it into the mass media is a wonderful feeling even on
reflection. I truly enjoy the idea of TOC
walking into a million homes,
schools and offices en masse every
Tuesday and Wednesday morning here.
Hope
this sharing will give you folks ideas to spin off.
Remember there’s
still TV and radio as unexplored
areas! Here’s something to chew on:
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t “ but he would be
one
Who wouldn’t say so till he tried.
—EDGAR A. GUEST
In
concluding this news, I would like to thank Dr. Sharifah
Maimunah,
Director
of the Curriculum Development Centre in
this newspaper break by giving my name to the editor and
for her continuing
support of TOCFE in Malaysian schools.
Last but not least, many thanks to
Dr.
Eliyahu Goldratt for
donating the knowledge to the children of the world
and Kathy Suerken for making the wish come true.
CONNECTIONS
(2) 8th Annual TOCFE Conference
8th
Annual TOCFE Conference
Location:
Dates: Thursday, May 20 -
Conference: Intercontinental Hotel in New
Accommodations: Jugoslavija
Hotel
If
you would like to book rooms at the Jugoslavija
Hotel, you can do that
through the Miross Travel Agency.
The person to contact is:
Ms. Dobrila Puzic
dobrila@miross.co.yu
Miross Travel Agency
Svetogorska 4,
Tel/Fax:
+381 11 33 44 945
+381
11 33 44 510
+381
11 33 44 529
EDITORS’ NOTES
(3) Kay
Buckner-Seal, Cheryl A. Edwards
Khaw Choon Ean,
Cheryl and I felt your article deserved the category of
“When Pigs Fly!” Because of your motivation and
vision, you caused a
breakthrough, which I'm sure at one time
seemed absolutely
impossible—TOC is now "walking"
into a million homes, schools, and offices
every Tuesday and Wednesday in your
country! We congratulate you and the
people of
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 cedwards@cedarville.net or
kayseal@comcast.net.
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