Principles for Living and Learning

Due to double vision, totaling my car, and having a pacemaker installed (in me … not in my car), I am missing the annual meeting of AECT  - my professional family and friends. I am basically confined to my home while trying to keep up with my two online doctoral courses. I have been thinking about how principles remain relatively stable while other things change dramatically. For example, the Hippocratic Oath and its principles to guide medical practice were developed more than two thousand years ago. Medical practice has changed dramatically in the years since it was introduced. It was an oath sworn to the Greek gods and has evolved somewhat from the original to include such principles as doing no harm, preventing disease, respecting all persons, and sharing knowledge to help prevent disease. That such basic principles of medical practice have endured so long in spite of how much medical practice has changed is remarkable.

In a book of essays honoring one of my mentors, M. David Merrill, I introduced what I called the Educratic Oath:

1.      Do nothing to impair learning, performance and instruction.
2.      Co what you can to improve learning, performance and instruction.
3.      Base your actions on evidence that you and others have gathered and analyzed.
4.      Share the principles of learning, performance and instruction that you have learned with others.
5.      Respect the individual rights of all those with whom you interact.

I was inspired to document those principles as I saw them practiced by Merrill, Gagné, Tennyson,Reigeluth, and so many others. I have been thinking that such principles could easily guide other disciplines, such as political discourse, economic policy, and engineering design by simply substituting the appropriate words for ‘learning, performance and instruction’.

The principles and values that guide decisions and actions in a sense determine who we become. As O. K. Bouwsma wrote in an unpublished journal{ “Surely your life will show what you think of yourself.”