The Toolbox is a full day training program that our firm provides focusing on serving students appropriately while maintaining discipline, order and safety.  One of the products that we provide along with the training is a laminated “Thinking Flow Chart.”

I tried to reduce the entire complicated Toolbox matrix to one of those nifty charts that educators love. You know the kind—it always has arrows and different shapes and colors, indicating that “if yes” go here; “if no go here.”  I love those things, and I know that you do too. So I spent about two hours in a conference room at the law firm, writing all over the big white board, trying to put all of this into a single chart.

I could not do it.  So my fallback position was to create a “Thinking Flow Chart.” It’s not as visually pleasing as those discipline charts that Region 4 put out many years ago. It’s all just words. But I do think it has a logical, easy to follow flow.

The Thinking Flow Chart (TFC?) starts out with Preliminary Questions. For example: did the student do something for which we would normally report to law enforcement?  If so, we use Tool #10.  Is this a case involving “Special Circumstances”?  If so, let’s pull Tool #5 out of the Toolbox.

So it’s like that.  Sound cool?  You can have your very own laminated TFC! Just sign up for a Toolbox Workshop!  Call the office to book one, or just send me an email.

DAWG BONE: THINK IN A LINEAR FASHION WITH THE DAWG’S LAMINATED THINKING FLOW CHART! BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO HAVE YOUR OWN!!

 File this one under: SPECIAL EDUCATION DISCIPLINE

Tomorrow: a praying football coach.