Learning Journal

A Christmas explosion of bumper gifts has relegated what part of my conscious that enjoys trashy, celebrity-wreckage-strewn TV to the dustbin of Self Improvement. For I have been bought all manner of serious, non-fiction books that threaten to - gasp! - make my brain think.
In Trust: From Socrates to Spin, by Kieron O'Hara, Greek scepticism is mentioned, especially the work of Sextus Empiricus (translatable as Sextus the empiricist). Being a doctor he was confronted by all sorts of crazy theories of how the body worked and how best to treat its problems, and became sceptical - when considering different theories with no way to choose between them, he would refuse to enter into philosophical debate. He believed that, without evidence, there was no way of settling the question. One must rely on one's 'common' sense and experience, and this will produce a relaxed wellbeing.
What could this mean for the teacher, the Zen master of learning who is stung by the wasps of so many theories and asked to choose between them? Obviously, that the sceptics amongst us will study what is in front of them and decide on their own course of action based on the evidence. This is a better course of action, say the sceptics, than attempting to choose between the theories (impossible) or being allowed to be seduced by one in order to simplify our lives (irresponsibile, as it will induce one to ignore one's own experience by fitting it in arbitrarily to a theory).
During my degree, I tackled with an essay on counselling that led me to consider 'eclecticism'. 49% of counsellors consider themselves eclectic, taking anything from any approach that would seem to work best for any given patient, considering their past experience and using trial and error. They say that this is better than allying with one theory because patients expect different things, and react differently to different theories based on their own beliefs and prejeudices.
Perhaps a good teacher should consider eclecticism too. You treat different individuals, well, differently. You treat different groups differently. When one person leaves a class - for example, because of exclusion for naughtiness - it can change the whole group dynamic. Reality and practice, what we have before us and what we have experience before us, might be able to inform us better than any theory, and lead us to diverse conclusions better for the diverse situations we encounter.
Of course, this necessitates understanding many theories and being reflexive and trying to understand what is happening in the class. Surely it is easier to plump for one thing and follow it slavishly, to link our fad diets and fad lifestyles with fad professionalism? It's the lazy way!