TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

January 30, 2004

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 Asia

“To move the world, we must first move ourselves.” —Socrates

Hi everyone, greetings from Malaysia and I have something to share! The

New Year started with a great development. To date, in Malaysia, TOC has

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 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and

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 Malaysia and in Singapore. It has a million readerships. What

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 Malaysia, for giving me

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: Belgrade, Serbia

Dates: Thursday, May 20 - Sunday, May 23, 2004

Conference: Intercontinental Hotel in New Belgrade

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, Beograd 11000

Serbia

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 Malaysia for such an accomplishment. Thank you for sharing!

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 kayseal@comcast.net.

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