Principle 1. Educating changes the meaning of experience.

How we educate is a complex process. Our task is to simplify this complexity without denying its value. This task requires much thought, careful planning, and individual effort. Educating becomes possible when it is viewed as a social event of shared meaning between individuals. Educative events help us come into possession of our world, both social and natural, and occur as a consequence of human choice, intervention, and inauguration, which give us power over subsequent events. Literally thousands of educative events happen. Examples of educative events include: a teacher and a student working together on a plan for a scientific experiment; a coach and a player reviewing a playbook; an automobile mechanic explaining to a driver a procedure with the fuel injection system described in the owner's manual; a gardener using a book on gardening to demonstrate the process of hybrid germination in plants to an interested party; a parent and a child reading about their family tree; and a student showing the teacher a computer programming application. In each of these examples, we see people using ideas (e.g., documents) to change meanings of events. As educative events come increasingly under the control of individuals, educating becomes self-educating.

The V diagram helps learners to recognize the complexity and also the basic simplicity of the knowledge construction process. V diagrams help first-time learners of the V to see that knowledge has structure.