I don't do numbers.

You've asked the question, "What's my paradigm?"

So...My life revolves around words. In fact, I had to warn my stats professor during our first encounter of our doctoral term that I haven't taken a math class since I was eighteen, and I really DON'T DO NUMBERS. I don't know exactly how this happened, for I was a very strong math student in secondary school. I guess something happened during my first go round with college: Math simply was not fun, and everything that incorporated the use of rich words was fun. I enjoyed learning new languages and cultures, how art is connected to time and place, and of course that literature is a reflection of the human condition. 

At first, I knew that I wanted to teach, but I didn't know what to teach. Surprisingly, my advisor in college said that I should be a math teacher, because my standardized math scores were very strong--he said that I'd be good at it. However, the thought of spending every day teaching kids to do something that was not fun sounded miserable to me. (The data, or the math, lied.) Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing the importance of math--I get it. I know that we need it and that it's central to everything from science to archetypes. I simply do not see the joy in it.

Therefore, my lens at this point is definitely not positivist. I will not, however, completely disregard post positivism, for I am willing to admit that empiricism is important in research. My problem (or my strength, depending on how you look it it) is that I believe that everything tells a story--even data. In fact, I believe that data sometimes creates more questions than it answers. I understand that humans are unique in that they can think one thing and respond accordingly on one day and then completely change their minds on the following day.

I guess that I haven't really answered the question yet, but I always tell my students that knowing what you don't want to do is just as important as knowing what you DO want to do.

 I’m excited about the direction that I’m moving, and we'll see where I land.