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Metaphors in education: Markets, greenhouses and families

Slide 1: Metaphors in education: Markets, greenhouses and families

Metaphors in education: Markets, greenhouses and families

Dominik Lukeš

March 2005

http://www.bohemica.com

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Slide 2: Outline

Outline

  • Introducing conceptual metaphor theory
  • Metaphor research in education
  • Education as a marketplace, greenhouse, family
  • Conclusions

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Slide 3: What is and what isn’t metaphor?

What is and what isn’t metaphor?

  1. Pupils have to pay attention to what the teacher is saying.
  2. Schooling is a way of passing down information from one generation to the other.
  3. The teacher is a parent who should show proper love to their pupils.

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Slide 4: Conceptual metaphor

Conceptual metaphor

  • Mapping between two domains of experience (source – target)
  • Important inferential structure is inherited from the source domain in projection
  • The projection from one domain to another is partial consistent with the topology of both domains
  • The use of metaphor is a central and mostly unconscious process
  • Metaphor functions at all levels of discourse
  • Metaphors are conceptual rather than simply linguistic

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Slide 5: Typical conceptual metaphors

Typical conceptual metaphors

  • HAPPY IS UP / SAD IS DOWN
  • UP IS CONTROL – The people above control our lives.
  • IDEAS ARE OBJECTS / MIND IS A CONTAINER – Who put those ideas into your head?
  • ARGUMENT IS WAR – He attacked her position. She destroyed his argument.
  • EMOTION IS HEAT – They had a heated argument.
  • CHANGE IS MOTION – Our progress ground to a halt.
  • STATES ARE PEOPLE – Heads of EU states met.

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Slide 6: Types of metaphors I: Conventionality

Types of metaphors I: Conventionality

  • Entrenched (lexicalized)
    • I need to digest some of these ideas.
    • The child lit up.
    • Harry blew his top.
  • Analogical (novel)
    • Education is reading the fine print
    • Teachers are engineers of the soul
    • Atom is like a planet with moons

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Slide 7: Types of metaphor II: Nature

Types of metaphor II: Nature

  • Rich image
    • We’re snowed under, Keep somebody at arm’s length
  • Image schematic
    • We’re out of money, Talk down to someone, Breathe out a sigh of relief
  • Conceptual
    • We’re wasting out time
    • The mind is a computer

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Slide 8: Types of metaphors III: Cognitive function

Types of metaphors III: Cognitive function

  • Structural (Rich conceptual structure)
    • EDUCATION IS GROWTH, SCHOOL IS A FAMILY
  • Attributive (Borrowed structure)
    • He’s a sheep
  • Ontological (Fewer mappings)
    • KNOWLEDGE IS A THING TO BE SOLD
  • Orientational (Schematic, enablers)
    • UP IS CONTROL, WHOLE IS RATIONAL

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Slide 9: Types of source domains

Types of source domains

  • Space/movement/physical world/forces
  • Human body/animals/plants
  • Food/cooking
  • Light/darkness/vision
  • Machines/tools/structures
  • Money/market

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Slide 10: What do domains look like

What do domains look like

  • Image schemas
  • Images
  • Scripts, scenarios
  • Folk theories, stories
  • Salient examples, paragons
  • Roles and relationships
  • Categories

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Slide 11: Relationships between source domains

Relationships between source domains

  • One target domain is usually structured by several source domains (ARGUMENT IS WAR, BUILDING, JOURNEY)
  • One source domain is usually used to conceptualize multiple target domains (THEORIES, CAREERS, COMPANIES ARE BUILDINGS)
  • Metaphors create complex interconnected systems (COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE PHYSICAL STRUCTURES)

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Slide 12: How and what for are metaphors used

How and what for are metaphors used

  • Make sense of the world
  • Express complex meaning
  • Construct alternatives
  • Organize systematic concepts
  • Invite interaction
  • Add dramatic effect

adapted from Cortazzi and Jin 1999

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Slide 13: Metaphors and actions

Metaphors and actions

  • Metaphors influence actions
    • People who think of language as a tool are more likely to be pro-reform than those who think of it as a person
  • Metaphors interpret actions/states
    • Teachers are more likely to see students as container than students who might see themselves as such
  • Metaphors and actions/states cooexist
    • Experienced teachers see learning in a behaviorist way rather than constructivist way

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Slide 14: Bibliographical interlude

Bibliographical interlude

  • Lakoff and Johnson 1980 Metaphors we live by
  • Lakoff 1993 Modern theory of metaphor
  • Lakoff 2002 Moral politics
  • Kövecses 2002 Metaphor
  • Donald A. Schön, Michael Reddy
  • I. A. Richards, Max Black, Israel Scheffler

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Slide 15: Metaphor research in Education

Metaphor research in Education

  • Metaphors as an instructional tool
  • Metaphors in the language of instruction
  • Metaphors in conceptualization of self in teachers (new and experienced) and students
  • Metaphors in educational discourse
    • Public discourse
    • Policy debates (not all conceptual)
    • Conceptualizing innovation (dtto)
    • Conscious and unconscious metaphors

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Slide 16: Metaphors of Education

Metaphors of Education

  • teacher is …
  • school is …
  • student is …

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Slide 17: Common Metaphors of Education (Often used attributively or ontologically)

Common Metaphors of Education (Often used attributively or ontologically)

  • SCHOOLS ARE PRISONS, GARDENS, FACTORIES, SOCIETIES
  • TEACHERS ARE PARENTS, GUIDES, DIRECTORS, ACTORS
  • STUDENTS ARE CONTAINERS, PLANTS, ANIMALS TO BE CONTROLLED
  • LEARNING IS GROWTH, FILLING UP, LIFE

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Slide 18: Education as a source domain

Education as a source domain

  • LIFE IS A TEACHER

  • EXPERIENCE IS A SCHOOL

  • COMPANY IS A SCHOOL (The learning organization)

  • EMPLOYEES ARE PUPILS

  • BEING ABLE TO DO SOMETHING IS BEING ABLE TO READ (functional literacy, emotional literacy, numeracy, computer literacy, academic literacy, oracy)

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Slide 19: More metaphors of education (Used structuraly/constitutively)

More metaphors of education (Used structuraly/constitutively)

  • Market metaphor

  • Growth metaphor

  • Family metaphor

  • Engineering/scientific metaphor

  • Society metaphor (education for democracy)

  • Moral/humanistic metaphor (education to ensure moral humans)

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Slide 20: Metaphors and educational policy

Metaphors and educational policy

“Diverse and sometimes contradictory metaphors on schooling and school improvement dominate the thinking of policy makers, scholars and practitioners.” (Wincek, 1995)

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Slide 21: Market metaphor

Market metaphor

  • Product

  • Consumers

  • Manufacturing

  • Trade

  • Currency

  • Efficiency

  • Marketplace

  • Business theory

  • Parents

  • Students

  • Society

  • Government

  • Knowledge

  • Information

  • School

  • Employment

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Slide 22: Examples of discourse

Examples of discourse

  • “A school has to decide what kind of organization it is (a factory, a work community, a market-place?), who its customers are, what they want and how that is to be delivered and measured.” (Handy&Aitken, 1986)
  • "We must give consumers of education a central part in decision-making. That means freeing schools and colleges to deliver the standards that parents and employers want. It means encouraging the consumer to expect and demand that all educational bodies do the best job possible. In a word, it means choice." (Kenneth Baker introducing Education bill in 1987)
  • “It is only through the market mechanism of choice that we can get away from the stultifying and inherently unjust method of assigning children to schools according to their ZIP codes.” (Education Week, 2002)

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Slide 23: Areas of policy influenced

Areas of policy influenced

  • School vouchers
  • School choice
  • School (academic) performance and league tables
  • Performance-related pay
  • No strikes for teachers (as professionals)
  • Effective administration (school/district/nation level)
  • Economies of scale (Edison schools)
  • Superheads
  • Curriculum for needs of country i.e. business
  • Competition in textbook design
  • Teacher training
  • Assessment

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Slide 24: Growth (organic) metaphor

Growth (organic) metaphor

  • Organic nature

  • Nourishment

  • Care

  • Biological theory

  • Birth

  • Illness

  • Health

  • Death

  • Learning

  • Becoming adult

  • Being mature

  • Being a useful member of society

  • Being a responsible citizen

  • Being able to learn

  • Mind/body

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Slide 25: Examples of discourse

Examples of discourse

  • “Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. If man were born big and strong, his size and strength would useless to him until he had learned to make use of them.” … “The education of man begins at his birth; before speaking, before understanding, he is already learning.” (Rousseau, 1762)
  • “The object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth.” (Dewey,1916)
  • “We teach children, not subjects.” (Progressivist slogan)
  • “The growth metaphor in itself thus embodies a modest conception of the teacher's role, which is to study and then indirectly to help the development of the child, rather than to shape him into some preconceived form...” (Scheffler, 1960)
  • “only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself” (Dewey, 1897)

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Slide 26: Areas of policy influenced

Areas of policy influenced

  • Child-centered education
  • Textbook design
  • National curriculum
  • Teacher training in child psychology and physiology
  • Physical education in the curriculum

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Slide 27: Family metaphor

Family metaphor

  • Parents

  • Children

  • House rules

  • Obedience/Duty

  • Love

  • Rearing/behavior control

  • Society

  • Teachers

  • Students

  • Principals

  • School rules

  • School allegiance

  • Love for knowledge

  • Society

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Slide 28: Examples of discourse

Examples of discourse

“The family metaphor is fundamental to education since society requires that school personnel and parents act as co-guardians of children. Even legally, school personnel act in loco parentis.” … “Mega Center's children developed a strong sense of loyalty to their individual family of learners and to the schoolwide family. The school's principal, teachers, and staff expressed both in words and in practice their conceptualization of school-as-family for the children. Although, the teachers and staff related to children as family, their relationships with one another did not flow from the family metaphor. Neither were parents and guadians of the children viewed through the lens of the family metaphor.”

(Wincek, 1995)

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Slide 29: Areas of policy influenced

Areas of policy influenced

  • School environment
  • Teacher role
  • Parental involvement
  • Corporal punishment
  • Proportion of moral education in the curriculum
  • Proportion of socialization as a purpose of education
  • Sex education
  • Breakfast clubs
  • No child left behind / Every child matters

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Slide 30: Mixing metaphors for diversity

Mixing metaphors for diversity

  • “it is undeniable that modern technology plays an increasingly important role in the process of wine-making, yet there is a definite limit to technical intervention. We are in fact operating within a triangle: nature, technique and care. Only the combination of these three can explain why each year, each winery, and even sometimes each bottle brings a different wine.” (Leirman, 1993)
  • “Metaphorical language, it seems, has served as a vehicle for introducing concepts -- usually emanating from academic circles--into the parlance of practice. In decade after decade, scholars have clothed their newly developed ideas about leadership in metaphors from earlier eras.” (Beck and Murphy, 1993)

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Slide 31: Conclusions

Conclusions

  • The market, growth, family and other metaphors are present in the educational discourse on multiple levels and pervade both daily conversations and simple statements, and complex models of the educational system.
  • The metaphors used are partial and present multiple possibilities for mapping.
  • Metaphors have clear implications for the formulation of policy. However, a clear one-to-one relationship cannot be established. Rather, metaphors motivate our actions and are in turn formed and reformed through the experience we gain as a result of our activities.

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Slide 32: Endnotes

Endnotes

More information: http://www.bohemica.com/metaphor

Contains: PowerPoint presentations, annotated bibliography, links to online resources, online discussion forum

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