- Gegevens
- Laatst bijgewerkt: 13 december 2013
After successful implementation of IMT / Best Value and the no control model at the Kashiwagi family we decided to implement IMT / Best Value and the no control model as well at the Hutten / van Hes family.
The trigger of doing this was our oldest son who just passed his current grade level; it couldn’t have been any closer. We had been implementing a lot of management, direction, and control (MDC) on him resulting in stress levels sky rocketing at times. This year we are changing things, his study is his responsibility. The goal is passing again this school year. It can be translated into scoring grades at an average of 6.0.
After a few weeks the first result were as follows, a 3.5 followed by a 3.7. So far no need to worry; his third result was the perfect 10.0.
Let’s take a look at what IMT teaches us. The initial conditions govern the final conditions and if you know the initial condition you can see into the future. We know the initial condition, teacher’s grade between 1.0 and 10.0, so it is of no surprise that his grades are between those numbers. No need to get disappointed over the 3.5, extremely happy after the 10.0 or angry because of another bad grade (3.7). No emotions means Type A, according to KSM (Kashiwagi Solution Model).
It sounds fine, but I wanted to be a bit more accurate in predicting the future outcomes of my sons study results. And 17 results later I observed that I was able to predict the outcome more accurately. My son his lowest grade was 3.5 and his best score 6.5 (with the exception of the 10.0 and another 9.3). The conclusion is first that if nothing changes his grades will remain between 3.5 and 6.5 with some exceptions that are predictable as well. And also that this would not make him pass, which is the goal.
When applying Best Value this is a good moment to put a new unexpected result in the weekly risk report. As it is rather unexpected that he is not going to pass this year. Since we are just a third of the way into the year there is plenty of time to change and apply another approach. In Best Value words, we need a risk mitigation plan. At a dinner party at the local Japanese restaurant we explained our finding to our son, including the conclusion that going on like this would mean he would not pass the grade level. It is up to him to come up with a mitigation plan.
That is what he did. In simple words, he was going to pay more attention during class. This sounds reasonable, but the change isn’t doing anything about his basic problem. He does learn but lacks the motivation to study enough to earn grades at 7.0 or higher. Paying more attention in class doesn’t help his motivation. We graded his mitigation plan with a 1.0. He was not amused but indicating that maybe thinking about how he managed to get grades like 10.0 and 9.3 would help him to come up with a better mitigation plan. That is what he did, he wanted us to question him a day before any test. The purpose of the questioning is to identify what he didn’t understand well and have it explained to him one more time.