Metaphors for Learning
How can 'learning' be described?
Part of teaching is to help learners understand what learning is. Often teachers use metaphors to describe learning so that it can be better understood.
Main Section
As Aristotle pointed out, metaphors are at the very core of human thinking. Lakoff & Johnson (1980) developed this theme, pointing out that learning is often talked about in association with words implying a container being passed from person to person:
‘Get it across’; “I didn’t get it”; “It didn’t come across”; …
Often our language betrays us by promoting perspectives we don’t actually espouse, but at the same time, the metaphors embedded in our speech may reflect more of what we believe than we care to acknowledge.
People have proposed a number of different metaphors at different times.
Tabula Raza: the empty slate or container, to be filled with knowledge
Organic gardening: learning as something which can be promoted through watering and feeding, but is essentially something the learner has to do themselves.
Staircase of progression: learning is about climbing a staircase of knowledge; the teacher’s task is to facilitate, to make it fun, to drive or draw the learner upwards.
Spiral learning: learning comes about through frequent re-encountering of similar ideas in different contexts [Bruner 1996].
Getting to Know a Domain: learning is like becoming familiar with a new territory: at first there are isolated regions you get to know through familiarity; every so often, you realise how different patches overlap, and sometimes these amalgamate into a larger patch of familiarity, but sometimes they remain as separate patches with overlapping transition regions. [Greeno 1991]
Phase transition: learning is like changing from one physical state to another: at first, despite energy, attention, and attempts to ‘learn’ there is no visible progress; then suddenly progress is evident.
Lakoff & Nunes (2000) suggest that all of mathematics is based on metaphors to do with bodily experience, such as in and out, up and down, back and forth, and so on. Interest in the fundamental role of metaphor in mathematics was triggered by Jacobsen’s reconstruction of ancient Greek ideas and reintroduction of the notion of metaphor and metonymy into grammatical and educational thinking. It has been developed particularly by Wacek Zawadowski (1991).
Probes & Prompts
Which metaphors do you find most compatible with your own views? Does the way you speak with colleagues and learners reflect that metaphor or some others?
Taking Action
Ask your colleagues what metaphors they prefer for learning and for teaching [metaphors for teaching]. Probe the implications of those metaphors for how you make pedagogic choices and how you behave in the classroom.
Ask your learners what metaphors appeal to them. They might like to construct their own. Case Studies
Research Sources
Bruner, J (1966). Towards a Theory of Instruction, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Greeno, J. (1991). Number sense as situated knowing in a conceptual domain. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 22 (3), 170-218.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lakoff, G. & Nunez, R. (2000). Where mathematics comes from: how the embodied mind brings mathematics into being. New York: Basic Books.
Zawadowski, W. (1991). Postmodernism and postmodern mathematics in schools: Warsaw: Department of Mathematics Education, Mathematical Institute, University of Warsaw.
Categories
Constructs