The Ends Principle. Blog 2
The Sabertooth Curriculum and the Ends Principle: Blog 2
The Ends Principle: Good
learning designs prepare learners to meet community needs by linking living and
learning to the PICKLE: Problem-solving, Information using, Community
participation, Knowledgeable, Literate, and Ethical decision-making
In the beginning of Sabertooth, we meet New Fist. It was said that “he knew how to do things
his community needed to have done, and he had the energy and will to go ahead
and do them.” By observing what his
community needed, he developed a curriculum of study to make life better for
his tribe. He embraced learning to live
and living to learn. He reflected on the
problems he saw in society and came up with a way to teach the basic skills
that were needed. Other community
members saw how well the program worked, and they copied his ideas. His process was developed for the good of the
community as a whole.
As time went on, the tribe got stuck in this original
plan. Because they weren’t willing to
change the tried and true, their educational system became more and more
obsolete. The initial subjects New Fist
used as the basis for his education were skills the students would no longer
use. Teachers became afraid of teaching
that challenged present thought. They
were no longer focused on problem-solving, as suggested by the changing
environment. Topics of study became “magical”,
not to be changed. Eventually, some in
the community took advantage of the situation they saw and created monopolies
where they made all the income to the detriment of the rest of the tribe. The society, in its unwillingness to change
to fit a changing world, became weak and unprepared to compete with other
societies…
This story is a wonderful mirror to what we see too often in
education now. We do things because
we’ve always done them, rather than reflecting on whether or not what we are
doing works in today’s world. Are the
problems were are solving the ones that need to be solved? Are we truly
“learning to live”, or learning for learning’s sake? Why do we teach what we teach? What changes can we make to the education
process so what we teach as well as
the way we teach fits the future
needs of our students and of the global community?
Using the PICKLE as the framework, are we creating students
who are problem-solvers, or are they just learning to use set algorithms
they’ve been given? Can they access and
use the huge body of information that is available to them? Are we looking outside the walls of our
school to see larger needs? We have the
ability to see much more than our own local area. What is happening in the world beyond? Knowledge and literacy are more than what can
be presented in a textbook. We seem to
be ignoring the idea of ethics. There is
much that we CAN do, but often the question that needs to be asked is whether
we SHOULD do it. Does it add to the
greater good?
I have begun looking at what I teach in a new way. I’m trying to put the PICKLE test on my
curriculum. I know it’s going to be work
to make changes. It seems exciting and
daunting at the same time. Time is a
huge issue. I’ve told myself that baby
steps are okay. It’s easy to get lulled
into using the same ways, as they did in Sabertooth. I know how to do the “old” way so well!
The question of whether we are “learning to live” or learning for learning’s sake is one that resonated with me as I read The Sabertooth Curriculum as well. However, you also raise a great question with “Does it add to the greater good?” Perhaps, it would be beneficial to link the two ideas when designing instruction. It is not enough to learn to live in terms of survival but also learn to live in such a way that makes a valuable contribution to the community. Ethics then becomes intermediated between survival and contribution.
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you are going to integrate PICKLE in your curriculum. I agree that time is always an issue when it comes to instruction. Hang in there!
I really liked your depiction of The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, and I also believe that it mirrors today’s education and its problems. I also think that the PICKLE framework is a great place to start. Thinking about my own practice, I am sure that it’s going two steps forward, one step backward most of the time, but it is exciting to be able to put new ideas to the test.
ReplyDelete"Why do we teach what we teach?" I feel like that is on my mind every day now. I am working with my CLT to try and "personalize" learning for our students. We aren't a PL school (YET) but I refuse to wait around. I can envision station rotations easily due to my elementary experience, but of course they will have quite a bit of different purpose and content. The management I am not worried about, it's ensuring that each student truly is getting what they need that concerns me. I can use all the apps and decipher the data and assess formatively and summatively and assign grades in the report card system, but... is this what they need to live?? The SOLs and the Curriculum Guide... I think we need a bunch of New Fists to take charge. Happily, some are!
ReplyDeleteYou're exactly right-- "we do things because we've always done them." It's so easy to get caught up in the routine and stick with what we know works. But just as our students change, our resources change, and we change.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point with using the PICKLE (problem solvers vs learning algorithms) I think the answer comes from how we present the problem, and what type of problem we give. All of the readings thus far focus on the authenticity of the work we design. So if we let that be our driving force, we can get there! I admire that you're testing out the PICKLE, you've started the "change" process!