Dancing on the three tips of the Teaching Iceberg

Hawkin's model of the I, Thou, It Triangle which is meant to provide a balanced classroom. Sometimes a circle surrounds the triangle to signify the context or environment in which the class unfolds.

Get ready to dance on the 3 tips of this Triangle / Iceberg Source

In some recent feedback, my professor Elka Todeva used the expression, "the dance between the three tips of the triangle." We know the three tips of the triangle as Hawkin's "I," "Thou," and "It." The beauty of Elka's metaphor, though, is in the subtle reference to icebergs and the suggestion that each of the three tips of the teaching triangle have uncalculated depths beneath them.

So much we don't see Source

The metaphor also highlights the fact that we may be focusing on one tip at any given instant, but we are constantly in motion among the three, in a dance. This implies the emotions of teaching: we may associate dancing most easily with joy, but the other emotions of the classroom may also find expression here.

The 3 Tips of the Triangle, ready for dancing Source

"I need to learn that the pain I sometimes experience in teaching is as much a sign that my selfhood is alive and well as the joy I feel when the dance is in full swing." 

- Parker Palmer,  The Courage to Teach, 75.