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TACTics Journal
A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners
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from Kathy Suerken Our conference co-sponsors in Poland are the Mazovian Teacher In Service Training Centre and Transfer Learning. They have really been busy in support of our event, which has been endorsed by the President of Warsaw! Although seating is limited to 300 people, they will print 3,000 copies of a conference brochure and will send invitations, brochures and posters to all Mazovian Schools plus to VIPS throughout Poland. They expect to have some educational press - and possibly TV and radio - coverage. ( Click to see brochure front - Click to see brochure back ) The track for TOCfE specialists include two afternoon workshops on ‘How to Be Your Own Jonah’ co-facilitated by Danilo Sirias and me. This two part workshop will include what I learned from Eli Goldratt during his recent Odyssey Reunion Seminar. Do you think Eli will want or NEED to provoke our thinking as he observes us? ? An additional afternoon workshop will be devoted to a discussion of the TOC basic assumptions and the topic of "When You Think People Let You Down". As you can see in the Polish brochure, the local event is for 3 days only. In addition to his keynote address on Friday, Oct 3, Eli will also provide a closing address on the 4th day of our international conference, Sunday, Oct 5 - a day that is for the international network only. A complete agenda (in English) will be available in September at: www.tocforeducation.com Thursday, October 2 - Sunday October 5 (4 days) Warsaw, Poland Airport: Frederic Chopin Airport (Airport Code: WAW) Venue: The National Library of Poland Hotel: Hotel Campanile - (taxi from airport is approximately 10 Euro) Towarowa 2 00-811 Warsawa Tel: +48 (022) 582 72 00 Fax: +48 (022) 582 72 01
Until Sept 1, 2008 or when a limited supply of blocked rooms is gone:
Ask for ‘grupa MSCDN or TOC for Education’ When the special rate rooms are no longer available, reservations will be on space available basis at the prevailing rate. Conference Fees: Includes daily transportation between hotel Campanile & venue, coffee breaks and special event dinner on Saturday, Oct 4.
By Flavio Arias Sanchez, Director, TOCfE Guanajuato, Mexico from a letter as edited by Kathy Suerken On July 1, 2008 SEG - Secretaria de Educacion de Guanajuato, ITESM Campus Leon (Tech),TECNOS, and Acierto Educativo sponsored a one day TOCfE congress that was attended by approximately 230 teachers and 70 presenters who are TOCfE practitioners. Here are some of the details as shared by Flavio:
"The main objective of the "Encuentro Regional de la Comunidad
Educativa TOCFE 2008" (Regional Meeting of the Educational Community TOCFE
2008) was to show that TOCfE can make a difference when we approach an
educational project with a common aim, with the same language, with the same
tool and to reach to the whole educational community represented by executives,
teachers, students and parents.
As the Director of Middle and Secondary schools, Jose Luis Muñoz shared how he began to see the fruits of TOC in very short time. This has been possible because Jose Luis involved himself with the tool applying it in his own situations and with his example he stimulate too his teachers. He has a group of boys who did the Ambitious Target to improve the gardens of the school and they had to do everything necessary to achieve it. They had to harmonize the interests of their peers and educators of junior high school, and also had to negotiate with the Director, teachers and little students of elementary school that occupy the school in the morning. They also one gave the experience of working with the students where, in one of the teams, they proposed to rise their academic average of group specially in the history subject. They succeeded to increase the general average of the group from 7.5 to 8.0 in an academic period of month and a half for surprise of all, even of the teachers! The work with family parents in this institution and in others has been incredible and delicious. In the "Encuentro" 30 family parents accompanied us and some of them gave their testimony of work in their family and in their personal life. There was also the participation of young students. Daniela, my daughter, with the support of a teacher, Naoemi (both of whom were at Florida conference) have begun the Ambitious Target to constitute formally a group AGOAL. In the school where Daniela is finishing her studies in secondary school, together with some companions, they taught the TOCFE tools to three groups of lower years. At the same time she worked with almost 90 students at Jose Luis' school, together with the teacher Naoemi and me. Additionally, we have observed that TOCfE is enough constructivist that it models very closely the learning theory that is proposed by the nacional Secondary Reform. Sharing these conclusions were Mtra. Carmelita (who also was in Florida in the past Conference) and her husband Marcelino. I wanted to say to you that everything was perfect but it is not like that. Suddenly there were three levels of attention (Teachers, Parents and Students) and what for some was very interesting, for others it turned out boring because we had to repeat some concepts. Nevertheless, these three groups have to learn how to work together in an educational institution and we need to find better and better ways to discover the potential synergy when learning together. We will have to think how to change the dynamics of a similar meeting or maybe to do different meetings for each group. We are close to signing an agreement with the State in order to work with the Secretaria de Educación with parents in all the regions of Guanajuato's State (they are eight educational regions). We will attend to 19 groups of family parents. We will continue with this action during August to November of the present year, while we continue doing other offers. Although this is slow and difficult, I am sure that TOCFE is the special and unique response for the education and for our country. I expect to support the necessary time to achieve these proposed aims because Mexico needs TOCFE to overcome the enormous obstacles that do not allow us to wake up to the giant that we are.
Cal Halliburton is adding a new TOC Learning page to his web site at www.halliburtonassociates.com . Look under the TOC link on the left side menu for TOC Learning. The new page features written and video tutorials beginning with the Evaporating Cloud for conflicts and choices. Check the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) link as well for TRIZ tutorials. TOC and TRIZ are great companions. TOC provides a graphic structure for TRIZ and TRIZ provides a knowledge base for invention, innovation, and creativity. The pages go active August 21, 2008.
An Educational Action Novel - A Viable Vision - The Goal for Education I watched an old movie the other day, the relevant issue being an industrial "incident" prompting a regulatory commission investigation. A plant supervisor tells a foreman for the plant (who is working with the commission), "This shutdown is costing us money. Give them everything they want. Be thorough." He pauses, and then adds, "But be fast". What a dilemma the foreman suddenly found himself in! Sure, the solution may present itself rapidly, but what if it didn't? What if "thorough" meant "very slow"? What's he to do? Dilemmas, though not with the consequences of a faulty power plant, tug at us daily. Should I, as a programmer, document my work when I'm getting paid by the amount of code I write? I'll leave the debugging to the next poor fellow! My bonus is tied to the number of subscribers I enroll? Don't blame me when many cancel their plans 6 months down the road when they can't pay. I've already cashed my check! In other words, don't blame me when my behavior is a product of how you will measure me. I believe the K-12 educational system is in a similar bind. The principal goal of "Architects" is not to "solve" the problem of education, but rather to define the reason education does not improve like we think it should. The Principal Conflict Imagine you're teaching math to a group of 25 kids with differing abilities, having to get through material dictated not by you but by the district curriculum head, with state tests around the corner. In comes "consultant x" or "person y" carrying "great materials z" to revolutionize math. What would you say? "It looks great, but not right now". What else could you say? You can't possible do anything with the material, given your situation, right - even if you wanted to! The Format of the Book A word on the layout of the book: there are three "themes" intermixed. One regards high-stakes tests, beginning not with "how do we do better", but rather, "Why isn't anybody doing better?", particularly when all of the material is right in front of the kids (in the reading and science sections). The progression is through the reading, math, and science sections. The second thread is provided as a "rest" from the first, and it deals with a basketball team struggling with the loss of key players and the eminent shutdown of the school. How can they compete? Though seemingly different than education, the issues involved are identical. Can we (and how) improve rapidly - now? The third thread is my philosophical thread. These are Principal Ragnar's nightly walks / self-discussions, trying to make sense of systems, of improvement, of stagnation, etc. The six "peripatetic adventures", called in the book "Chautauquas", are: ![]() Other Issues Considered A non-exhaustive list of things considered in the book follows:
This is a story about people we know in our school.
And Finally ... Inspired by the unusual method that Eli Goldratt has recently used to collect reviews for his new book (those of you who attended the last conference may well have taken part), we are planning to include a book review feature in TACTics. The frequency of this feature will depend on the availability of suitable TOC books and material for review. Luckily we have a new publication to start this feature; it is from Mike Round, Architects of Their Own Future which is a novel showing how TOC can be used in education. Given the depth and experience of TOCfE practitioners and staggering range of backgrounds of our readers, this is an ideal opportunity for TACTics to publish reviews written by our readers for our readers. With this in mind, I am looking to recruit a volunteer reviewers who will be willing to donate the time needed to read, and write a review on, this and future literary offerings. Potential reviewers might like to send example reviews (perhaps of existing TOC books) when volunteering to review new publications. Please send any offers to volunteer by email to the address below with ‘Book Review’ in the subject line. Similarly, I am offering the opportunity for budding authors to send copies of their books to me so that TACTics can organize reviews on their behalf. If such literary masterpieces are available in electronic format, they can be sent to me at the address below (if your Internet provider can cope with large documents!). Otherwise, hard-copy text or CD’s can be handled by this office. Please contact me for further details. I look forward to hearing from you - whether you are a good reader or a good writer (or both) - and look forward to disseminating TOC even wider. Best wishes, Alan ... Email: tactics@mct-ltd.com |