Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [528]
FIGURE 26-4 Group bullying Cloud. (Source: Doug Roby, used with permission.)
In describing a wider range of discipline issues at the school, Roby’s (then) Vice Principal, Ben Walker, noted, “Detentions, suspensions and, in one case, expulsion from the school only seemed to bring a temporary halt to the problem. After we started using TOC Peer Mediation, we were able to get to the root causes such as fear, jealously, etc. As these students grew in self-awareness, they no longer felt a need to harass others. I find the drop in these cases remarkable.”10
This application of TOC to Peer Mediation has spread to schools in other countries—most notably to Colombia where, in 2005, then 15-year-old Ana Maria Conde and a group of her peers representing a TOCfE sponsored youth organization, AGOAL Academy, participated in a competition sponsored by the Universidad Nacional and the Mayor of Bogota. Ana and her team were required to submit a project that would present a well-defined problem, a concrete solution, and an implementation plan to achieve the solution. Of the 180 submitted projects, 36 were chosen to be presented in front of the Mayor and representatives of the University. As an award to AGOAL Academy for achieving first place on their use of TOC in Peer Mediation, the University sponsored TOC training of 10,000 students and 100 peer mediators.11
The Cloud works with children of all ages to develop their abilities to solve problems wherever they encounter them. Therefore, in addition to painting a Cloud template on the playground in Nottingham, England for her students to resolve external conflicts during recess as pictured in Fig. 26-5, then head teacher Linda Trapnell12 in 1998 began to use Clouds to analyze problems in literature.
After reading an age-appropriate version of Oliver Twist to an assembly of 200 children between the ages of 4 and 7, Trapnell used the TOC processes to guide the students to define Oliver’s internal conflict regarding peer pressure to steal. In TOC, a problem is not defined until it is presented as a conflict between two things. According to these young children, the conflicting choice was to be a pickpocket or not to be a pickpocket as noted in Fig. 26-6. After summarizing the problem through the TOC graphic organizer, the Cloud, Trapnell then asked the students to think of reasons why, in order to satisfy his need for money, Oliver assumed he had to become a pickpocket.
FIGURE 26-5 Cloud on the playground. (Source: Linda Trapnell, used with permission.)
FIGURE 26-6 Cloud in literature example. (Source: TOCfE, used with permission.)
These reasons represent inferences13 and are an academic benchmark necessary to interpret information and to develop higher order thinking and problem-solving skills. Many strategies rely on combinations of definitions, examples, and visual illustrations to teach the concept of inference and how to apply it, but while helpful, they do not always sufficiently evoke the assumptions from which inferences can be drawn. The systematic, concrete questioning technique in the Cloud to raise assumptions is very simple and effective in enabling even very young students to draw inferences based on their individual experiences, knowledge, and opinions and to synthesize this information as they very simply explain the logical connections in information.
In this way, students are able to create their own scaffolds between their existing prior knowledge and the desired new knowledge. This scaffold also makes the learning more personally relevant to the students, thereby enhancing their motivation to learn. Enabling students to summarize, draw inferences, and identify deeper and broader perspectives of all sides are important academic benchmarks upon which students are tested. The more students are able to achieve these learning objectives for themselves through a systematic teaching methodology, the more they are able to meet their own learning needs.
After Trapnell