Where am I in this?

Now, my existence has recently been plagued by conflicting demands and rather muddled theories and techniques, attached to the wrong focus, and I've decided I have had enough.

I'm tired of building my educational philosophy, beliefs, and ideals on someone else's terms, of building on my weaknesses rather than on my strengths.

One thing that has been getting on my nerves is that we are continually taught two ends of a spectrum, one end teacher-centered and the other end student-centered. Now, I am no fan of spectra. (Or a pendulum, which is its other disguise.) The spectrum is just confusing when it compares things over all and not on just one characteristic. It just does not make sense to me. So I decided to ditch the spectrum. As my struggles with it are mainly geometrical, I'll switch methods and solve my problem geographically.

Here is an idea that came to me tonight:

The islands on the right and on the left represent the traditional ends of the spectrum. On the left we find behaviorism, which is very external and can be rather superficial. We also find the belief that a child is an empty vessel and the teacher must pour knowledge into the poor thing. Manipulation is key. This tends to work in the here-and-now. On the right we find a misdefined sense of agency, where agency supposedly cannot exist with outside restrictions, and children make their own world. (Sorry Uncle Alfie!) This works long-term but may be chaotic meanwhile.

Both options work. That is not what we are contending. But both miss out on the edification that can come through a mutually-enriching environment, built by students and teacher. This third option is where both students and teachers can reach their full potential as divine beings, children of Deity.

Now, some would try to put this on that spectrum we were talking about, but if it is addressing an element that both extremes lack, how in the world does it make sense for it to be in the middle? Although it is in the middle on some issues such as amount of teacher control, there are so many other characteristics that would be lacking if we were to rely overmuch on the spectrum.

So if you like the spectrum, think of it that way. As for me and my classroom, we'll just be another island off somewhere else in the ocean where we can have a little peace and quiet for a change!

Sure, we share some characteristics with both islands. Duh. We're in the same ocean.