The Ends Principle

The Ends Principle

There they were, slowly populating on the board in front of us. "Problem Solving" someone stated. "Communication" from another. "Media literacy" a raised voice projected. Quickly, sharply they flew out like darts onto a dart board. Unlike a numbered dartboard, we had no idea where our answers were landing. Filling up the grid in a seemingly unorganized manner our instructor soon made clear to us the acronym that we were to learn. PICKLE. Problem solving, Information using, Community participation, Knowledge, Literacy, and Ethical decision making. All good learning designs to prepare 21st century learners by linking living and learning to the PICKLE. "Teachers may need an apple a day, but learners need a pickle!" was the mantra.

To me this means not taking the living out of the learning and that learning can come from living. Something I hadn't given much thought. So much of my learning in school, many moons ago, was in a sterile, clinical environment where rote learning was the way of the land. I vividly remember squirming in my desk thinking how boring school was. Facts, numbers, equations, formulas... they all ran into a muddled mess that I had no desire to string out and make sense of. The knowledge I did gain did not give me the will and energy to act on it. Dissecting a frog, I remember. Doing projects, I remember. I remember a trigonometry project I created where you had to figure out who assassinated the president from the angle of the bullet. Three suspects were on three different floors of the building. Two people's innocence hung in the balance, can you catch the assassin? I got a very high grade on that project, best grade I had in that class. I think even the teacher was a bit surprised at the grade I earned.

Somehow, being in this privileged position to guide the learning of our young, I've got to devise a way to design a path to the PICKLE patch. Is it through projects? Through group tasks? Through online peripherals? Whatever it may be, it will continue to grow as I travel on this journey and I put effort into leaving the living in the learning so learning can come from living... something a little more structured, something more designed, so I don't feel like I'm blindly throwing darts.