MOVE 01 • INTAKE
Structured client intake
The office converts a complaint into a consistent case file with family, setting, and problem details.
DEWEY'S METHOD DRAWER • THREE BOOKS
How Dewey works the problem.
The office never gets one magic formula. The method grows because the cases grow. A parent problem teaches one move; a classroom adds another; a sibling problem makes Dewey rethink something he thought he already understood.
THE BIG CHANGE
The problem gets wider.
Book 1 mostly asks what is underneath one person's behavior. Book 2 adds classrooms, evidence, experiments, and school systems. Book 3 adds relationships where two people can want opposite things at the same time. Dewey's method changes with the size of the problem.
BOOK 1 • PARENT PROBLEM SOLVER
10 ways Dewey works the problem.
The office begins with complaints about parents and learns to look underneath visible behavior, observe patterns, bring in collaborators, and respect the limit of what a kid problem solver should control.
MOVE 02 • DIAGNOSTIC REFRAME
Look underneath the visible behavior
Dewey treats the reported annoyance as a clue and asks what earlier cause, condition, or need might explain it.
MOVE 03 • OBSERVATION
Observe before concluding
Dewey compares what people report with what actually happens over time.
MOVE 04 • PATTERN RECOGNITION
Connect apparently separate symptoms
Several visible behaviors may share one underlying clue rather than requiring separate explanations.
MOVE 05 • COLLABORATION
Use trusted collaborators
Seraphina and Colin help Dewey gather perspectives he cannot obtain alone during his own family case.
MOVE 06 • CONVERSATION
Ask directly when indirect evidence stops helping
Clara pushes Dewey toward a direct family conversation once more investigation no longer clarifies the central decision.
MOVE 07 • SELF DISTANCING
Treat the solver as a client
Clara has Dewey use his own client form so he can examine his personal problem with more distance.
MOVE 08 • ETHICAL BOUNDARY
Respect the limit of intervention
Dewey learns that understanding a parent's problem does not make him responsible for making the parent's life decisions.
MOVE 09 • SCOPE BOUNDARY
Recognize when another professional is needed
Georgina's case is reframed toward medical evaluation once the pattern suggests a health explanation rather than simple bad behavior.
MOVE 10 • ADAPTIVE PLANNING
Revise after unexpected information
When an investigation changes course, Dewey treats the disruption as new information and revises his thinking.
BOOK 2 • TEACHER PROBLEM SOLVER
14 ways Dewey works the problem.
Classrooms make the method more complicated. Dewey adds evidence collection, perspective reversal, deliberate experiments, counter-evidence, redesign, and questions about systems rather than only individuals.
MOVE 01 • INTAKE
Adapt intake to the classroom
Teacher cases add classroom, schedule, friend, witness, subject, and teacher-description details to the office's existing client process.
MOVE 02 • EVIDENCE COLLECTION
Collect classroom evidence before judging
The first teacher case formalizes gathering classroom evidence before deciding what the problem actually is.
MOVE 03 • PERSPECTIVE REFRAME
Reverse the client perspective
Dewey asks what advice the teacher would receive if the teacher were the client complaining about the student.
MOVE 04 • RELATIONSHIP REFRAME
Model shared responsibility
Teacher problems can include legitimate teacher issues and student behavior at the same time; the solution can require change on both sides.
MOVE 05 • COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Compare boring and not-boring teaching
Dewey compares classes to identify humor, enthusiasm, real-world connection, unusual activity, and active thinking as engagement clues.
MOVE 06 • CONTEXT EXPANSION
See the teacher outside the classroom role
Dewey tests his assumptions about Mr. Nisano by observing that teachers have ordinary family lives and identities beyond school.
MOVE 07 • EXPERIENTIAL REFRAME
Let the other side experience the problem
The Nisano case turns boredom into an experience the teacher can feel from the other side rather than only hear described.
MOVE 08 • BACKGROUND RESEARCH
Ask what came before the visible obsession
Clara redirects the Snow case toward earlier causes and Dewey researches the teacher's public background before deciding what the shark focus means.
MOVE 09 • ITERATIVE PROTOTYPING
Treat a failed solution as evidence
Dewey's facts-and-myths presentation does not erase students' fear, so the failure becomes evidence that the case needs a different kind of response.
MOVE 10 • LEARNING REDESIGN
Move from information toward experience
Mr. Snow's final response shifts from explanation alone toward gradual observation, touch, and supervised experience with harmless sharks.
MOVE 11 • COUNTEREVIDENCE
Let the research argue back
The school campaign changes direction when research contradicts some of the students' original assumptions about toilet paper and school snacks.
MOVE 12 • SYSTEMS REFRAME
Separate the goal from the implementation
The trio concludes that conservation and nutrition goals can be reasonable even when the chosen mechanisms are frustrating or poorly designed.
MOVE 13 • PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
Turn protest into shared decision-making
The campaign evolves from demanding reversal toward measurable goals, education, balanced choices, and student participation in policy design.
MOVE 14 • EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLE
Teach self-regulation instead of controlling every choice
Dewey argues that students need opportunities to practice making good decisions because devices and rules cannot regulate every future choice.
BOOK 3 • SIBLING PROBLEM SOLVER
17 ways Dewey works the problem.
Sibling cases add competing needs, attention versus space, common cause, prevention, and the uncomfortable discovery that Dewey can learn from his own behavior inside the same family system.
MOVE 01 • INTAKE AND CLASSIFICATION
Structured client intake
Dewey and Clara use forms and categorized records to define the client's problem, identify family members, map relevant household details, and sort requests into problem types.
MOVE 02 • FIELDWORK PLANNING
Environment and access planning
Before observing a household, Dewey studies entry routes, alarms, hiding places, family routines, and physical constraints so he can choose an observation position without being detected.
MOVE 03 • SURVEILLANCE
Remote live observation
Dewey initially tries to observe Claire and Adam remotely by having Claire start a live video connection whenever Adam is nearby, including moments when no conflict is yet occurring.
MOVE 04 • SURVEILLANCE
Physical stakeout
When remote or reported evidence is inadequate, Dewey hides inside a client's home or vehicle and directly observes family behavior while taking notes.
MOVE 05 • OPERATIONAL CONCEALMENT
Cover story
Dewey uses an ordinary-sounding explanation for his movements when covert casework would otherwise expose the investigation.
MOVE 06 • DISTRIBUTED INVESTIGATION
Delegated evidence capture
When Dewey cannot directly access evidence, he asks a client or collaborator to capture material for him, such as screenshots or live video.
MOVE 07 • BEHAVIOR CHANGE INTERVENTION
Controlled disclosure and confession
Dewey sometimes moves a case forward by having a client admit hidden behavior or reveal an uncomfortable truth, accepting that the immediate reaction may be worse before the larger problem can be renegotiated.
MOVE 08 • DESIGN ITERATION
Iterative solution revision
Dewey treats a solution as revisable when it creates a new problem instead of defending the original plan as final.
MOVE 09 • RELATIONSHIP REPAIR
Shared-interest substitution
Instead of merely suppressing an unwanted family behavior, the Thomas-family solution redirects Naomi toward a shared activity—Minecraft—that creates connection with Archie without reproducing Angelica's social-media boundary problem.
MOVE 10 • SIBLING RELATIONSHIP INTERVENTION
Common-cause alignment
Clara and Dewey reason that siblings who are fighting may become allies if they face a shared problem that makes cooperation more useful than attacking each other.
MOVE 11 • EXPERIMENTAL INTERVENTION
Manufactured shared problem
Dewey operationalizes the common-cause idea by staging Claire's bicycle disappearance and a ransom trail so Adam and Claire will have a problem to solve together.
MOVE 12 • CASE ANALYSIS
Underlying-motive reframing
Dewey separates the visible object conflict from the underlying need. In the Disk case he realizes Louise's behavior is less about possessing Efren's Lego than about wanting access to and attention from Efren himself.
MOVE 13 • SIBLING RELATIONSHIP INTERVENTION
Focused-attention prevention
Dewey proposes that Efren proactively give Louise a short period of focused attention so her need for connection is met before it turns into later intrusion, possession conflict, or retaliation.
MOVE 14 • RESEARCH AND REFRAMING
In-story research as analogy and prompt
Dewey uses material he encounters during research not as unquestioned external truth but as prompts, analogies, and conceptual tools for thinking about a case.
MOVE 15 • SOLUTION DELIVERY
Collaborative consultation
During the Disk follow-up, Dewey discovers that presenting a solution can itself be collaborative: the adult clients help interpret an analogy and articulate parts of the recommendation with him.
MOVE 16 • BUSINESS PROCESS
Confidentiality adaptation
When adults become clients, Dewey adapts the office's paperwork and adds an explicit confidentiality agreement rather than assuming the child-client workflow will work unchanged.
MOVE 17 • PROBLEM SOLVER SELF MANAGEMENT
Self-regulation before reframing
When the Claire-and-Adam plan begins to collapse, Dewey deliberately slows his breathing before reinterpreting the crisis as the genuine shared problem the siblings need.
KEEP DIGGING
Methods are only useful inside a case.
Open the case maps to see where each move came from, or ask Clara to search the entire office for a method, person, object, place, or phrase.