I Pledge My Head to Clearer Thinking
Posted: July 30, 2009
Tuesday night I had the opportunity to welcome nearly 700 young Pennsylvanians to the annual 4-H State Achievement Days.
I pledge my Head to clearer thinking,
My Heart to greater loyalty,
My Hands to larger service,
My Health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world.
As with all 4-H events, the session opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and the 4-H Pledge – the words seen above. I grew up in 4-H and later worked as an extension 4-H youth educator, but last night I began to wonder how often I had said those lines without thinking about either their meaning or implications.
Head – simple enough, perhaps. We help young people gain expertise in subjects of interest to them. We teach them the facts. This is a key starting point, of course, but it isn’t sufficient; we have to connect them also to facts and subjects related to their particular interests.
Heart – develop a passion. Many of our young people come to our 4-H programs because they are passionate about a subject. Our programs focus on cultivating that passion, often nurturing educational and career goals.
Hands – facts are not sufficient. To really fuel that passion and to cement the facts, it is critical to have our young people “do.” In fact, Learning by Doing is the hallmark motto of 4-H. Use your hands and you will remember what went into your head.
Health – let’s expand the notion of maintaining healthy habits – important enough for young people – to include a sense of social health. As we learn new subjects, grow passionate about them, and actually put them into practice, I interpret health as understanding what effect your actions have on society and considering how your personal knowledge contributes to a sustainable future for us all.
Head, heart, hands, health: the core principles of our extension 4-H youth program. But they also apply to all of our educational programs. I see these principles in what my colleagues and I do with undergraduate and graduate students, and I see them in our extension educational programs for food producers, marketers, and consumers. Teaching isn’t simply about providing the facts; providing a context for those facts is what really matters in the end.
