Thresholds

The constitutive nature of metaphor in everyday life

Much of what we think and do
is a function of metaphor

"Thought of the Week" for January 1, 2007

Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary, conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.

Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 2003. The metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press. P. 3.

Comment:

Educational metaphors dictate the values in our schools

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2007 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

The largely unquestioned metaphors that guide today's educational thinking are the factory metaphor, the business metaphor, and the consumption metaphor. All three combine to form the dehumanized, high-pressure educational system we have today.

FACTORY: Students move along the assembly line, knowledge and skills are added at each stop, and they come off the line as completed human beings (notice how we use the words "produce students" in much of our discussion). In my school, we received a memo that administrators had been taught how to "process behavior," as if behavior exists apart form the human being who is behaving. In other words, the product is malfunctioning.

BUSINESS: Schools are "accountable" for the products they produce. When schools "fail" (based on this quantifiable business measuring system), we call in outside experts. We never ask the workers (teachers). We look at education as an investment that must show a profit/return (student products that are able to work better, faster and utterly compliant). We focus on techniques of production (the education world is full of "better ways" to deliver materials). Even the president of IBM commented that students are human capital and teachers are selling education.

CONSUMPTION: Students "pay" attention and teachers "deliver" instruction. Learning is not view as growth, but as accumulation of skills and knowledge. Education, to use another metaphor, is building a "tool belt" of skills and knowledge that can be used. Whether or not it helps the child grow and develop is not of concern. How much you can accumulate (and demonstrate that you have accumulated) is the issue.

THE QUESTION: What if we changed education's guiding metaphors from the factory, the business and consumption? What if the educational model became a garden? How would we view students/children then? How would we view our teaching? How would we view standardized testing and accountability?