Zones of Proximal Development

I have been thinking about the idea of both feminist oriented pedagogy and the way feminism/feminist theory is presented to students. I have felt somewhat overwhelmed this semester with ideas and ways I want to express them (i.e. in the web events) that I have ended up feeling almost paralyzed. I am confronted with so many different directions these ideas could go and the many other ideas that progression might create that I end up tying myself (and all the ideas in my head into knots). Critical Feminist Studies has presented me with so many potential directions that I have paralyzed myself with indecision and the inability to make a choice when confronted with so many viable options. This is the paradox of choice.

I have noticed that in many ways (often within the classroom/academic realm) I simply want to be told what to do, so I can produce exactly what is desired. I want to fulfill a demand. Yet I know any pedagogy that makes explicit demands might oppose effective feminist pedagogy. Earlier it was mentioned that in trying to create a less top down classroom environment (top down being when the prof. lectures, and students absorb) we might have inadvertenly created a more imposing, more controlled and restricted environment, in which it is not possible to choose to spend the class period staring into space. In creating a more "liberal" environment we also created a more restrictive one. Similarly, the open nature of subject and assignment within this course has led me to feel trapped, within my own head.

It is also quite possible, and even likely, that I have fabricated this entire "trap" in my head. I want to say so much and yet I feel I don't know what to say. I feel incredibly challenged and yet I feel this challenge is not external but rather something I have birthed myself.