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Exploring the Power of TOC for Education - Leaving behind a Better World. Christoph Lenhartz
1. Exploring the Power of
TOC for Education
- Leaving behind a Better World
TOC for Education Conference
Vilnius, September 27, 2012
Christoph Lenhartz, Chairman, TOCICO
2. Topics
1 Understand Power and Potential of Meaningful Change
2 Explore some Elements of TOC for Education
3 Look at Two Examples
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3. The State of the World
We sometimes ask:
•How do I feel about my job, my life, my school?
•How do those neyt to me feel?
“The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the
question has emerged: survival for what? Even more people today
have the means to live but no meaning to live for.”
Viktor Frankl
We should rather be thinking about these questions:
•What is the purpose of our existence?
•What is the purpose of education?
•What is the purpose of educating?
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4. We Want to Live a Meaningful Life
If you want an easy
life, hit yourself with
a hammer on the
head and you’ll have
an easy life – they
will even bring the
food to your bed…
People don’t want
an easy life – they
want a meaningful
life!
11/05/12 Picture: credit to Carol Ptak 4
5. The Choice – Living a Meaningful Life
Live a full life
Have enough meaningful successes
Have stamina to Have many Be able to collaborate
overcome failures opportunities with people
Be able to think clearly
Overcome four
obstacles
Source: Goldratt&Goldratt, The Choice, 2nd rev‘d ed.
2010
6. The Four Obstacles
Reality is very complex!
Conflicts are a given!
Blaming!
We know the situation!
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10. TOC for Education
• Created in 1995 by Dr. Eli Goldratt
• Not-for-profit organization
• Global reach:
– 200,000+ adult education stakeholders
– 8 million+ children in 21+ countries
– Broad understanding of “education”
Mission:
Through the synergy of the TOC tools and visionary educators
worldwide, TOC for Education will improve significantly the
education of children by enabling them to think and communicate
effectively. Working together toward shared goals, TOC for
Education and all who champion children will leave behind a better
world.
12. TOC Is Useless for…
• Ad-hoc decisions – TOC makes aware of consequences of any
action
• Systemic decisions to serve personal interests – TOC looks at
system level outcomes
• Biased solutions – TOC is ethical and will not harm anyone
• Win-lose – TOC produces win-win impartial solutions and will not
favor anyone
14. Improvement = Meaningful Change
• What to change?
• How to cause the change?
• What to change to?
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15. What to Change in Education?
• Reform, reform, reform!
• Are more children better prepared to become productive and
responsible adults?
Did we attack
symptoms
or
problems?
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16. Many Students…
…do not know how to solve their own problems.
…memorize, rather than understand what they are taught.
…can not apply what they learn to other situations.
…do not see the relevance of what they learn to their lives.
…do not accept responsibility for consequences.
18. The Education Dilemma… Unsolved
Prepare all children
Meet learning and
for life (become
behavior needs of all
productive and
students.
responsible adults).
Educate well.
Work effectively Prioritize and set
within existing criteria for meeting
resource limitations. needs.
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19. A Possible Solution
Develop all students’ ability
to take responsibility
for their
own learning and behaviors.
Would such a solution mean
that all who lead children
would have
more time and energy
for other things?
20. What If there Is Light at the End of the Tunnel….
…there were simple THINKING TOOLS enabling us/students to:
•Define problems and create thoughtful solutions
•Effectively analyze information (rather than memorize)
•Apply content to own, everyday live
•Set own goals and develop logical plan to achieve these
•Make reasoned judgment and decision
•Apply processes to own decisions, thus acting in responsible and
productive ways
21. And, What If…
…these thinking tools could be taught through
existing curriculum as a means to achieve required
curricula, standards, benchmarks?
-
22. Still Obstacles Out there…
Reality is very complex!
Conflicts are a given!
Blaming!
We know the situation!
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23. Overcoming Obstacles Opens the Path to Meaning
Inherent simplicity Clear thinking
Every conflict can
Opportunities
be removed
People are good Collaboration
Never say, I know Resillience
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24. Remove the Four Obstacles to Live a Full Life
Live a full life
Have enough meaningful successes
Have stamina to Have many Be able to collaborate
overcome failures opportunities with people
Attitude Creation Encounters
Be able to think clearly
Overcome four
obstacles
Source: Goldratt&Goldratt, The Choice, 2nd rev‘d ed.
2010
25. Creating Meaningful Education Systems
All work has the potential to provide meaningful existence:
– People can find meaning in life through work that allows them to
use their creativity and uniqueness for the benefit of others.
– This type of work allows them to both give to the world and to learn
from it.
•It is a leadership duty to remove the four obstacles
– Look for and solve root causes
– Create harmonious systems (learning environments)
– Remove and prevent conflicts
– Enable substantial improvement
•Lead through example
•Support individual creation of meaning
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26. Socratic Dialogue
• It is not the task of the teacher to pour information into students.
• But rather to elicit from the students what they know intuitively.
• Everbody has the basic freedom of will,
the will to meaning and
the ability to find meaning in life
through creative, experiential
and attitudinal values.
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27. Example: TOC in Prisons*
Pilot project in high security prison with 2,400 inmates:
•60 soon-to-be-released inmates
•21 to 60 years old of various ethnic origin
•Diverse, but rather low educational backgrounds, weak to basic
English
Approach:
•6 * 3 hours training in conflict resolution and goal setting
Evaluation:
•Benchmark: 20% of released offenders keep job for 3 months
•Result: 60% of released offenders are still in job after 3 months
•Now all new inmates receive intensive TOC training within two
months of emprisonment
*Cf. Cheng, TOC in Prisons, TOC
Handbook, Chapter 27 05.11.12 36
28. TOC in Prisons – Why TOC?
TOC Tools Are Socratic
Inmates are being Lectures ignore
lectured on the “right situation, feelings,
way” all the time. immediate needs.
Inmates resist outside
opinion.
Rate of recidivism
increases.
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29. TOC in Prisons – Why TOC?
TOC Tools Are Socratic
•TOC tools use own words,
expressions, language
•Enable development of own
solutions to own problems
•After buy-in sense of accomplishment
through self-help
•Empowerment in a confined setting
Feeling: Change in
Empower Ownership
Buy-in they help attitude and
-ment of solution
themselves behavior
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30. TOC in Prisons – Why TOC?
TOC Tools Cross All Boundaries
•Generic & specific
•Simple yet logical
framework to check
thought process
in own language
Perceive Use TP Ownership Change in
Use TP meaning- even of tools & attitude and
fulness more solution behavior
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31. TOC in Prisons – Why TOC?
People Are Good
Offender assumes
“People are bad”
responsibility
Self-blame & guilt
Offender BELIEVES
he is bad.
Bad actions result from illogical or
irrational choices of action to meet a
Offender acts
valid need (wrong assumptions).
accordingly
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33. 100 Kids, 100 Clouds, 100 Days*
• TOCfE started in Malaysia in 2000
• Included in national curriculum years 1-11 (2005)
• Primary and secondary schools
January 2006: 100 kids, clouds, days
What to Children need, but don’t have problem-solving skills
change? and tools.
What to Children have necessary skills to significantly advance
change to? their learning and development.
How to cause Teach Cloud to enable children to solve problems, take
the change? decisions and manage their learning themselves.
*Cf. Ean, “100 kids 100 Clouds
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100 Days”, TOCICO 2006
34. The Objective
Children can solve problems on their own
Children in a conflict or decision-making situation immediately use the
Cloud
•Children can surface the assumptions linking the wants to the needs
•Children can pick out invalid assumptions
•Children can give injections when they spot an invalid assumption
•Children can provide alternatives to the need
Specific Children use the Cloud.
Measurable How many, how often use the Cloud?
Attainable Concrete steps
Relevant A life skill for real life situations, not just classroom
Time limited 100 days.
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37. 100 Kids, 100 Clouds, 100 Days – Results
• 100 children from 3 schools
• 77 achieved 100 clouds in 100 days
Post test results:
Used clouds in
post test 56 14
Did not use
clouds in post test 21 9
Completed Completed
100 clouds <100 clouds
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38. A Cloud a Day?
• What if we diligently applied the TP Tools ourselves?
• Imagine the potential change that can happen to
each of us if we did the same thing.
• What bridges could we build to a better life?
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39. “A Cloud a Day Keeps the Conflict Away“
1. Improved ability to think – more clearly and systematically
2. Find good, improved solutions for problems in our life on our own
3. Self-confidence – empowered with a useful, practical life skill
4. Save time – arrive at solutions quickly without hashing over a
problem helplessly
5. Handle very private matters without revealing anything we may not
want others to know
6. Take the emotion out of the problem – thus helping a bad situation
7. People-skills improve
8. Solving your own problems improves psychological state of mind
9. More time for meaningful endeavors instead of wasting time over
problems we can’t define or solve.
10. Use for analyzing relationship with others and better understanding
of own needs and wants.
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40. 4 Pillars of TOC
INHERENT EVERY PEOPLE ARE NEVER SAY
SIMPLICITY CONFLICT GOOD I KNOW
CAN BE
REMOVED
41. May You Live a Meaningful Life
People don‘t want Man does not
an easy life – they generate meaning –
want a meaningful he must discover
life! meaning.
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42. Dėkui!
Thank You! Vielen Dank!
Pinnacle Strategies Europe, Middle East & Africa
www.pinnacle-strategies.com
clenhartz@pinnacle-strategies.com
+49 175 1862047
Editor's Notes
This presentation is about all of us – you, me, and espacially about our children
Let‘s start with looking at the typical workplace today. Most jobs , at least most jobs that require some level of formalized education, training, experience provide sufficient means for the job holder‘s life, even for his family, maybe even for some luxury etc. [1] However, the answers to these questions are not as straight forward as they may seem Ask yourself, how you would answer the first question. Positive, negative, don‘t know, it changes? How would the people around you answer theses questions? If we look at research findings, they typically indicate a wide spread uneasiness, a lack of motivation and purpose in the workplaces. So [2] If this is true, then we should rather ask the following questions: [3] Does it stand for „making more money by selling telephone systems“ or does it stand for „enabling easy communication and exchange between people and organizations“? Google is not about making money by running an internet search, but it is about „ organizing the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” One of our clients has stated his company’s purpose as “helping to promote health with effective and efficient packaging solutions for drugs” What is more motivating, money or purpose? What do people acuatlly want?
In a famous statement, Eli Goldratt takes this argument a step further [1] BUT [2] So we even have to move beyond purpose and look for meaning.
The most appropriate way to start is to re-acquaint ourselves with the logical map created by Efrat Goldratt-Ashlag in The Choice on what it takes to lead a full life. [Read the map] What are these obstacles?
… . Let‘s take a detailed look at these
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! June 12, 1987
However, this was not the result of the speech of one politician or the vision of another It was changed created by the many who focused their actions. One thought, one person can start the movement, but it needs the many who know what to do, who have the vision and the willingness to create a better, more meaningful world.
Thinking is the KEY to human existence Cogito ergo sum ( French : "Je pense donc je suis" ; English: "I think, therefore I am") is a philosophical Latin statement proposed by René Descartes . The simple meaning of the phrase is that someone wondering whether or not he or she exists is, in and of itself, proof that something, an "I", exists to do the thinking. However, this "I" is not the more or less permanent person we call "I". It may be that the something that thinks is purely momentary, and not the same as the something which has a different thought the next moment. [1] Thinking is fundamental to being human. Thinking can be liberating. Thinking can be confining. When thinking is confining, it creates many obstacles making people hard to attain significant goals. Theory of Constraints (TOC) helps people think systematically to overcome obstacles and create no new ones. A constraint is the most important obstacle that stands in the way of achieving a goal.
TOC has started as a methodology to improve a system, so any change should be an improvement Otherwise – don‘t make the change! Engelhard, Heinrich Christoph Vernünftige und christliche Gedanken von Verbesserung des Schulwesens Marburg, 1753
Although every improvement is change, not every change is an improvement (E.G.)
Why is it, in spite of all the changes and good intentions of those bringing changes to education, that we still have so many problems that prevent us from achieving our ‘Ambitious Target’ in education? Obstacles such as….. And these obstacles and symptoms exist for a long time! Why is it so difficult to solve these problems?
Does blame solve a problem? Or does it usually make the problem worse? Do we need another approach…an approach that starts by helping us to understand the problem in a fair and non-provocative way? Starting with ….what are we trying to achieve?
If the goal is to educate well, then all students need to be prepared for life. In order to achive that idealistic and worthy objective, educators must meet the needs of all stakeholders, especially the learning needs of all their children, no child should be left behind! On the other hand, educators must work effectively with the given resources, as these are not without limits. We are talking about tax payers‘ moey, about tuition paid by paretns etc. These funds are obviously limited. To adhere to these limits, educators must do the same as anybody else who has to
… . Let‘s take a detailed look at these
We must overcome the perception of reality as complex, and the way to that is by having the CONVICTION that every situation is simple. The TOC Community accepts and understands this. For example, we don’t treat UDE’s as if they are standalone problems. Rather, they are a source of energy, a starting point to the CRT…etc.
2nd. Conflicts are not taken as given. Period. Look at rest of world, they are accepted. Short term versus long term, etc. As a toc community, we do not accept at all, they are not taken as given, and determination is how to remove the conflict. And this is more and more the standard.
Frankl (1985) stresses that people must take an active role in finding their unique life meaning. He stated that there are . . . three principal ways in which man can find meaning in life. The first is what he gives to the world in terms of his creations; the second is what he takes from the world in terms of encounters and experiences; and the third is the stand he takes to his predicament in case he must face a fate he cannot change. That is why life never ceases to hold meaning . . . . (Frankl, 1988, p. 70) Each of these ways can be used to determine meaning in life and all can be found in work that is meaningful.
Attitude – the stance one takes Creation – what do we give to the world around us? Encounters – what do we take through interaction with people and experience Removing the four obstacles enables the discovering of meaning
In The Doctor and the Soul , Frankl (1986) explains that people can find meaning in life through work that allows them to use their creativity and uniqueness for the benefit of others. This type of work allows them to both give to THE world and to learn from it. [1] [2] BTW: Science tells us that meaningful work and projects strengthen our immune system, so there is a clear connection between meaning and physical well-being, between resilience and resistance
Exercise the freedom to choose your attitude—in all situations, no matter how desperate they may appear or actually be, you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude. A situation is a circumstance in the literal sense. Lat. circumstare = to stand arund Realize your will to meaning—Only I can give the answer for my own life. commit authentically to meaningful values and goals that only you can actualize and fulfill. By committing to values and goals that might appear intangible but are nonetheless real and meaningful, we honor our deepest needs. This is also about assuming the responsibility for our life. Detect the meaning of life's moments—only you can answer for your own life by detecting the meaning at any given moment and assuming responsibility for weaving your unique tapestry of existence. This is about the importance of our intuitive capacity for love and conscience which offer great insights into how meaning reveals itself in everyday life and at work. Don't work against yourself—Sometimes our most fervent desires and intentions are thwarted by our obsession with outcomes. Avoid becoming so obsessed with or fixated on an intent or outcome that you actually work against the desired result. Look at yourself from a distance—only human beings possess the capacity to look at themselves out of some perspective or distance, including the uniquely human trait known as your "sense of humor". Shift your focus of attention—deflect your attention from the problem situation to something else and build your coping mechanisms for dealing with stress and change. Extend beyond yourself—It takes us into the spiritual realm of ultimate meaning, where we see how our lives connect seamlessly to the lives of others. We see how being of service, no matter what the scale, is where our deepest meaning is realized. And we learn how to effectively manifest the human spirit in our personal and work lives by relating and being directed to something greater than ourselves.
Socratic teaching is another aspect common to TOC and logotherapy. Freedom of will = 1st principle: You can choose your attitude inspite of circumstances People can learn from situation Leadership/managemetn MUST support/enable
Before we finish, let‘s turn our understanding so far into a process which is based on the thinking from The Choice: … Of course, being fully human and living an authentic life at home, at play, and at work are formidable challenges. They involve a willingness to embark down a path of self-discovery (on the personal and on the system level), drawing heavily upon what Frankl refers to as our “will to meaning” — that is, our inherent capacity to continually search for meaning under all circumstances. This human quest for meaning in every moment creates a path of discernment that runs through all aspects of our lives and the system . This quest, this path is of course a process, not a product, for during our lifetime there is no final destination where everything comes to rest.
2006 Singapore: educated human capital is recognized as the most important asset Poluation is limited, so this is a core constraint of national development To exploit: look at improving workforce productivity of ALL, including prison inmates ready for release Work is an important component of the rehabilitation process for offenders. Employment lowers the recidivsm rate through earnig one‘s own life, thus boosting self esteem
Lecturing on what to do, think, how to behave etc. By parents, teachers, social workers, counselors, lawyers, police, prison officials… Like smokers, they are numb to outside opinion, no matter how rational…
Within the setting of a correctional facility, where inmates are constraint to very high degrees in their behavior and actions Unleashing the THINKING PROCESS brings about EMPOWERMENT. The importance of this sense of empowerment cannot be underestimated. Behaviror can be controlled, mind can not!
Generic: different industries and applications Specific: meet individual needs and situation Languages Cultures problems from a business challenge to saving a marriage People perceive thinking processes as being meaningful, useful, and relevant to them.
The idea „bad people do bad things“ creates encormous sense of self-blame and guilt when an offender assumes responsibility for his actions. Unless there is atonement, many ex-offenders carry the belief that THEY ARE BAD. They are labeled by society, family, and by themselves and this labeling of being worthless, useless, hopeless marks their subsequent behavior, pushing them right back to where they came from. Not surprisingly this often turns into self-fulfilling prophecy
UDEs: Memorization and focus on exams instead of real learning Bad language skills Unemployability
The Project Approach What to change? Looks at current situation that needs to be rectified: The children need, but have no problem-solving tools Children are faced with many challenges in their lives today. Parents and teachers cannot be with them all the time. What to change to? The goal to be achieved after the administration of the treatment: Children have skills to solve their own problems Students need to learn to : Look at the problem situations in their everyday lives, Understand learning in school, not just memorizing, Learn and progress to collect and assimilate information before deciding what to do with it. • How to change? Help children to develop responsible thinking skills to empower them to make responsible and good decisions without waiting for adults to do it for them. The lives of children can be enhanced by teaching them the CLOUD as a practical lifelong problem-solving skill that they can use in their daily lives.
TOCfE equips childre, not just children, with the tools we need to live a meaningful life. As students, teachers, citizens May you all live a meaningful life. Thank you
