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Metaphor as Renewal: Re-Imagining Our Professional Selves …
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Created: Mon Jun 17 10:21:37 2002
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Metaphor as Renewal:
Re-Imagining Our
Professional Selves
CANDIDA GILLIS AND CHERYL L. JOHNSON
Teaching is like cheerleading. Your task is to motivate, enthuse, and get the students off the bleachers and in-
volved in the game. When the team is winning, that's easy to do; but when things are looking bleak, that's when
you really have to shake your pompoms, make a leap, do back-flips.
I am spring weather. I see the world coming alive. I am dark clouds, heavy with rain, but I pass more quickly
than my sullen winter cousins. I hear the returning geese across the ridge. I hear the worms under the grass,
running from the robins. I enjoy rolling over the prairie, surprising the joggers. I am a teacher.
T
hese are the metaphors of two students in English education programs who have imag-
ined what lies ahead of them. They are about to become teachers, and their images of
themselves, while joyful, are tempered with caution. I As beginning teachers, many
of us were told, "Don't smile until Christmas." We believed early on that to enter an
English classroom as an army sergeant would guarantee a well-ordered environment and re-
spectful, disciplined students. Others of us felt like Santa Claus, pulling treasures of great lit-
erature from a magical bag for the starry-eyed, eager readers who sat at our feet. How we see
ourselves as teachers of English depends on many of metaphor teachers can "portray their personal
things: culture, gender, and experiences. The meta- philosophies of what teaching is, their own vision of
phors we construct to describe our teaching lives their goals as teachers, and their sense of classroom
arise from the teachers we have known, from our realities" (57).
knowledge of pedagogy, and from our relationships These studies and the research of Anne
to literature, language, and writing. Because they re- Ruggles Gere, Sharon Pugh, and others advo-
veal our educational values, beliefs, and principles, cate metaphorical thinking as a means of deep-
they contain information essential to our growth ening our awareness as educators. Their views
as professionals. have been confirmed in our own workshops and
The work of Joseph C. Fischer and Anne classes, where we, too, have found the strategy a
Kiefer, and of Sarah Efron and Pamela Bolotin rich one for helping people clarify problems in
Joseph on teacher self-image illuminates the power their teaching situations and identify directions for
of metaphor as a tool for exploring our attitudes change. Educational reform movements and their
and beliefs. In "Reflections in a Mirror: Teacher- accompanying pressures--to adjust curriculum, to
Generated Metaphors from Self and Others," Efron incorporate technology, to incorporate mandated
and Bolotin Joseph show that "metaphor allows programs, and to be more visibly accountable--as
teachers both intuitively and rationally to engage in challenging as they may seem, present us with a
a reflective process about their personal notions of valuable opportunity to reexamine our professional
their roles in schools" (57). Through the creative use lives. If we are to make changes that are harmonious
English Journal 37
Copyright © 2002 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
with our goals, beliefs, and philosophies, we should would create a trustworthy structure. The only links
first "take stock," and metaphor is an ideal starting holding these boxes together were the days of the
point. As Pugh, Hicks, and Davis suggest in Meta- week. On Mondays I gave out the spelling words
phorical Ways of Knowing: The Imaginative Nature from a vocabulary workbook for tenth graders. On
of Thought and Expression, metaphors can help us Tuesdays I worked on identifying subjects and verbs;
understand "the selves we want to become or de- on using appositives, dependent clauses, and par-
spair of becoming . . . the selves we have been and ticipial phrases; or on varying sentence structure.
the selves we escaped being" (48). And it can show On Wednesdays I assigned a short story and the
us the selves we are able to become. questions that accompanied it. On Thursdays I
taught writing. On Friday we were ready for the test
Metaphors of Two Teachers on Monday's spelling words and for a reading com-
prehension test. In sum, it was a fragmented week:
Candy: I earned my teaching certificate in a pro- I taught separate skills and kept them separate. The
gram that stressed induction, problem solving, and only noise a passing administrator might hear was
what was then known as discovery learning. A teacher the yawn of a bored student.
was supposed to be structured but not authoritarian,
in charge but not dictatorial, the creator of an envi-
ronment in which students explored and drew their
own conclusions. The ideal teacher was not dominant We have discovered in our
in the day-to-day activities of the classroom, but
worked arduously behind the scenes to ensure that workshops that the exercise
students arrived at sound conclusions and received
appropriate inspiration from the material. I saw my-
self as a lighthouse--a beacon guiding my students, of creating and analyzing
the ships, to a safe and rich harbor. Adolescence was
a stormy sea. By introducing my seniors to Shake- metaphors has many benefits.
speare, Keats, and Golding, I would light their way
across the treacherous water to a calm, literate adult-
hood. My students were lost ships in need of a port, Eventually, I derailed that train. I began to
and literature and writing were their saviors. see that I viewed learning as a mastery of separate
When I look at my teaching today in light of skills. I valued each day's work, but did not see how
this metaphor, I am struck by how much I believed I might combine the skills on one given day in a
in my own power and the power of texts. While I larger framework. Now I am more like a Miles Davis
still see myself as a guide, I have abandoned au- trumpet piece both improvised and structured,
thority over the interactions among readers, writers, using many instruments to meld various tones and
and texts, having long since converted to reader re- skills in the classroom. Structure is still important in
sponse and workshop approaches. Students have this "arrangement," but now I teach story, language,
choice and exercise self-determination; they are and writing on the same day. I'm like a jazz trum-
sailors capable of charting their own courses, fixing peter. I may lead or follow other instruments as we
leaks, mending sails. Now I am more inclined to en- create the score.
vision myself as a videogame hotline counselor
("You're stuck on level six? Try these moves.") or a Charting the Journey
series of signs in a self-guided tour ("Push this but-
ton to hear about . . ."). I am an expert on strategies, In creating metaphors we clarify our relationships
a resource in a playful environment that supports to the people with whom we work and to the teach-
exploration and finding one's own way. ers we were, are, and want to be. Thinking meta-
phorically, we articulate assumptions we bring to the
Cheryl: When I started teaching I saw myself as classroom: assumptions about teaching, learning,
the engineer of a train. The Boxcar Queen. I thought and literacy, and assumptions about power, author-
that if I assembled a pattern of ideas and strategies, ity, and community in our classrooms. We have
separating the skills into their own compartments, I found numerous activities as useful starters for this
38 J U LY 2 0 0 2
Exercises in Metaphor
· Imagine your classroom as one of the "restaurants" A marching band Spaghetti
listed below. Which would it be and why? A snowstorm A chain link fence
Ping pong A bad cold
Gourmet restaurant Truck stop
Vegetable soup Whitewater rafting
Fast food Potluck
A rose bush A concerto
Smorgasbord Family holiday dinner
Bungee jumping
School cafeteria Vending machine
Mall food court Hot dog stand Now write a poem that begins with the line "Teaching
Delicatessen Outdoor barbecue ______ (grammar, literature, writing, or speech) is
______ (the item you've selected). For example, "Teach-
(Suggested by Carolyn Tragesser, English teacher and ing grammar is animal crackers." The poem should be at
gifted-talented facilitator at Moscow [Idaho] Junior least six lines long. (This activity is fun to do with a col-
High School.) league. In our workshops, each group of teachers draws one
· Imagine your classroom as a room in a house. Which is item from the second list at random.)
it and why? · Create a metaphor for each of the following:
· Imagine yourself in the classroom as a kitchen utensil the teacher you wanted to be when you began teaching
or household appliance. What would you be and why? the teacher you now would like to be
· Imagine yourself as a mode of transportation. What the teacher you think you actually are (if different from
kind, and why? your ideal)
a teacher you hated
· Create a metaphor for your work as an English teacher a teacher you loved
by writing a metaphor poem. First, select one of the
following tasks: · Create a metaphor for each of the relationships in your
professional life:
Teaching grammar
you and your principal
Teaching literature
you and your colleagues
Teaching writing
you and your community
Teaching speech
you and your students
Next, select one item from this list:
Or, as the teachers in Efron and Bolotin Joseph's studies
A hot tub Animal crackers did (6575), construct metaphors for how these people
A basketball game A traffic jam might see you.
journey of self-discovery. Try some of those listed in And what do these metaphors reveal--about your
the sidebar to this article. environment, your relationship with your students,
your comfort level with administrators? We have dis-
Where the Journey Can Lead Us covered in our workshops that the exercise of creat-
Is your class like a meal in the school cafeteria, with ing and analyzing metaphors has many benefits.
meat and potatoes to start with and big cookies at
the end? Do you see your class as a gourmet restau- Metaphors Clarify Our Teaching Practices
rant, where people have time to savor carefully pre-
Gus, a third-year high school teacher, described his
pared meals (books) in a comfortable atmosphere?
classroom as a fast food restaurant:
Perhaps you are a whisk, keeping the talk moving
and your students stirred up; a vacuum cleaner, tidy- I have four different preps. My whole day is mov-
ing up the irrelevant digressions; or a cherry-pitter, ing from one thing to the next, and quickly. Civics
forcing the seeds of good ideas out of your writers. one hour, freshman English the next, and so on. In
English Journal 39
addition, I coach varsity basketball and have three lenges of teaching literature, juxtapositions that
children at home, with a two-hour commute each could evoke profitable discussion during an inser-
day. I am hurried and frazzled. I rush through a
vice workshop. (How do we invite students to read
whir of classes, activities, meetings, practices, and
games. My life is a burger and a coke, and make Shakespeare and not intimidate them? How do we
that to go. teach controversial works that are both "restorative"
and "too hot for comfort"? How do we "convert" our
On exploring this metaphor Gus discovered he felt students to devoted readers?)
just as frazzled in his classes--racing through activ-
ities to meet objectives and cover the material. He Metaphors Show Us How We Perceive
was surprised to realize that his classes were highly Our Students and Colleagues
teacher-centered, despite his belief in more student-
[I am] a sturdy flint, ready for little or large stones
centered learning.
(students) to rub up against me--pass by and
spark or flame.
Metaphors Clarify Our Attitudes
[I am] a spouse. There is an exchange in the rela-
Is teaching grammar root canal surgery or a look tionship between married couples that should be
through a microscope? Melissa, a preservice built upon trust; this trusting relationship should
be carried on between the teacher and students.
teacher, found her metaphor for grammar teaching
in the place where she lives: A flint and a spouse are two very different images of
Teaching grammar is like whitewater rafting on the teaching. The first metaphor implies that the teacher
Lochsa in June. The paddles you've handed out is strong, passive unless approached, and a provoker;
are only half in the water, or are simply lying on students must seek her out and use her to ignite their
the bottom of the raft, and the sight of the first
small riffles of curling foam set your fellow rafters
own learning. A spouse, on the other hand, is a col-
into screaming fits. laborator who works in harmony with students, shar-
ing decisions and working with students to create a
(Interestingly, rafting at high water in June might be trusting environment. Implicit in each of these de-
dangerous, but it can also be the most exciting time scriptions are concepts of authority, power, and sta-
to be on the river. Navigating grammar may promise tus, and beliefs about how knowledge is constructed
similar rewards and risks.) or transmitted. Do you draw knowledge out of your
Is teaching writing more like building a students, do you impart it, or both? Do you prescribe
bridge or cleaning a messy room? For Ingrid, a vet- drills to strengthen muscles or medicine for ailing
eran high school teacher, it's like searching for a minds? Do you respond more to the image of charis-
spring. It reveals her belief in the innate fluency matic Mr. Keating of Dead Poets Society or to the fa-
of children: therly Mr. Chips? Are you protectors, collaborators,
You can feel it under your feet, see the vegetation or mediums that nourish and fertilize but do not di-
that marks its underground path, hear it looking for rect growth? And how would you describe your fel-
a way to surface, and suddenly there it is, gurgling low teachers and administrators--as resources and
up as pure as anything you could have imagined, supporters, or obstructors? Do you feel with your
maybe out of the rocks, maybe from under a rotten principal that you are an answering machine with a
log. Sometimes, you just sit down on the wet moss
and wait, maybe sing a bit until it finds you.
cheerful, prerecorded message, or a place-kicker, re-
lied on for the extra point? Is your English depart-
Teaching literature might seem more like a voyage to ment a nest of black widow spiders or a cluster of
Mars (a dangerous adventure into unknown terri- snowflakes, each separate and distinct?
tory) or an adventure in the kitchen, serving up books Examining the nature of professional rela-
to be savored. One group of teachers described it as tionships that our metaphors reveal can be an im-
"a hot tub--social, bubbly, inviting, relaxing, inti- portant step in clarifying how we relate to the
mate, intimidating, steamy, private, too hot for educational community. Efron and Bolotin Joseph
comfort, baptismal, restorative." Their metaphoric describe two sets of dichotomies in teachers' meta-
juxtapositions--social/private, inviting/intimidating, phors: 1) the teacher as creative, nurturing artist
secular/spiritual--reveal the complexities and chal- (play director, actor, orchestra conductor) vs. the
40 J U LY 2 0 0 2
teacher as mechanic keeping the machine running Through Metaphor, We Meet Ourselves
smoothly (manager, train engineer); and 2) the
Metaphors are not static, nor are our careers as En-
teacher as guiding parent (mother, lighthouse) vs. the
glish teachers. The possibility of change is implicit
teacher as co-learner (big sister, traveler, compan-
in the metaphors we create. If the waters are calm
ion) (5761). Fischer and Kiefer note similar pat-
and the sailors fit, the lighthouse may dim the light;
terns: Teacher as interpreter, presence, elder, child,
the engineer may leave the switchyard and head for
advocate, therapist, parent, animator, companion,
the jazz club. At any point in our histories we can re-
and storyteller (4250). Do our metaphors reflect the
trace our journeys, encounter our earlier selves,
relationships we truly want to have with students, col-
learn from our evolutions, and chart new journeys.
leagues, parents, and administrators? Do they reflect
In short, metaphors capture our professional lives
the teachers we want to be ten years from now? If
as we have woven and created them within and be-
not, what can we do to improve these relationships?
yond the classroom walls.
The Journey Never Ends
Is your English department We know you are pressed for time. With all of the
pressures placed on you to meet new standards and
a nest of black widow spiders adopt new programs, there is scant time to focus on
your needs for self-reflection and renewal. But re-
member: daydreaming and thinking like a poet can
or a cluster of snowflakes, be just as invigorating and useful as an inservice
workshop or a summer school course. In this self-
each separate and distinct? study you are your own teacher and well qualified
for this important, at times playful, task.
Work with other members of your depart-
ment and share your responses to the earlier ex-
Metaphors Are a Springboard for Change ercises or the following suggestions. Invite an
administrator to join your self-study group. Or take
Gus, the teacher who described his class as a fast this metaphorical journey by yourself; the elixir you
food restaurant, could see cardiac arrest waiting to bring back to your classroom and to your teaching
happen. When he compared this metaphor to one of life is your reward.
his ideal class, a family holiday meal where students
shared a buffet of activities they helped create, he
Supplementar y Exercises to Tr y
began to see the sources of his frustration: the ex-
ternal pressures from his job description; and the in- · Keep a "Teaching History" in which you chart
ternal pressures coming from his perception that he and reflect on key points in your journey as a
had to be "center stage" in the classroom, that he teacher. You might list these and then create
was the authority in the learning-teaching processes. metaphors for them and write about them in
As a result of this exercise, he began to seek ways to your journal. For example, Pugh et al. use
reorganize his classroom, to create an environment water, weather, or seasonal imagery to coax
in which students were more comfortable and self- new associations. For weather imagery,
associate your key points with a storm (from
sustaining, in greater control of their learning. He
raindrop to rainbow), a blizzard, the eye of
investigated and began to adopt strategies such as a storm, high pressure fronts and lows, jet
literature circles and writing workshops that would stream, changes in direction, zephyr, breeze,
focus briefly on minilessons he prepared but would and hurricane (86).
otherwise function on their own once the students · Keep a teaching journal for awhile (a month, a
knew how the approach worked. Addressing the semester, a summer, a year). Explore different
limitations in his first metaphor and comparing it to metaphors of yourself as a teacher: write about
the second helped him see a way to create a buffet, your daily life in the classroom, collect quotes
rich in activity, learning, and camaraderie. and dialogue from students, and record whatever
English Journal 41
Metaphors for "Teacher"
Here are a few metaphors our students and participants in our workshops have generated. Maybe one of these will work for you
or inspire one of your own:
Actor Spouse Plowshare Sand on the beach Minister
Snake-oil maker Tour guide Funnel Traveler Spark
Art pallet Wizard Stage hand Worker bee Fishing lure
Card game Apple tree Coach Road atlas Weaver
Fountain Magician Juggler Farmer Flint
Guide for the blind Mother bird Compass Astronaut Pitcher
Movie director Candle maker Master chess player Apple The sun
Oak Gardener Health care giver Potter Open book
Parent Backpacker Petri dish Gatekeeper Conductor
Pill Chef Ski instructor Construction worker Lioness
Rolodex Spider Passionate lover Salesperson Engine
Rose Companion Planet Easel Rubber band
Sculptor Knight Jack-in-the-box Best friend
Ship captain Fruit basket Runner Railroad engineer
will help you focus on yourself professionally. At and Deliver; Lean On Me; Mr. Holland's Opus;
the end of this period write a letter to yourself Conrack; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Good
and explain, through metaphor, where you are Will Hunting.
and where you hope to be in three years. Seal · In Bridging: A Teacher's Guide to Metaphorical
this journal and letter to your future self and Thinking, Pugh et al. suggest creating your own
open it at the specified time. You might ask a fantasy and imagining yourself in a different
family member to keep it and promise to mail form. First, see yourself as the teacher you are,
or give it to you when the time comes. Encoun- then imagine the teacher you might become--
tering your former self will be an event worth from a pigeon to a peacock, for example. In
waiting for, like finding an old letter you've writ- your journal imagine yourself waking up as
ten that opens a door to new understanding. someone else, focusing on what you were and
· View films or television dramas about teachers are now becoming. Possibilities: changes in
and create metaphors for the depictions. What nature--caterpillar to butterfly, river to a
images are projected of teachers generally? Of waterfall; changes in fiction--Clark Kent to Su-
the "teacher-hero"? Critique these cultural perman or a character of your choice; changes in
metaphors in your journal. Create new images perspective--how a closet looks to a cat; imagi-
and metaphors for your profession. How might nary changes--a mouse changing into a cat, a
you act, direct, and produce a movie or tele- Republican changing into a Democrat (96).
vision program that exemplifies these new · Compare problems in your teaching to some-
metaphors? Films to consider: Goodbye, Mr. thing else and imagine not only what the
Chips; Dead Poets Society; If; Blackboard problems are but also how you might address
Jungle; Up the Down Staircase; Educating Rita; them. In Writing with Power, Peter Elbow in-
To Sir, With Love; Dangerous Minds; Stand cludes a list of different ways to resee a problem
42 J U LY 2 0 0 2
or dilemma. Do several of these in one sitting: Fischer, Joseph C., and Anne Kiefer. "Constructing and Dis-
compare your problem to a pump that needs covering Images of Your Teaching." Bolotin Joseph
and Burnaford 2953.
priming, defective materials, a car that won't
start in the winter, a Gordian knot, bad diges- Gere, Anne Ruggles, Colleen Fairbanks, and Alan Howes.
Language and Reflection: An Integrated Approach
tion, a mental illness, or too many cooks in the to Teaching English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
kitchen (9192). Hall, 1991.
Pugh, Sharon L. et al. Bridging: A Teacher's Guide to Meta-
Works Cited phorical Thinking. Urbana: NCTE, 1992.
------. Metaphorical Ways of Knowing: The Imaginative
Bolotin Joseph, Pamela, and Gail E. Burnaford, eds. Images
Nature of Thought and Expression. Urbana: NCTE,
of Schoolteachers in Twentieth-Century America.
1997.
New York: St. Martin's, 1994.
Efron, Sara, and Pamela Bolotin Joseph. "Reflections in a
Mirror: Teacher-Generated Metaphors from Self
and Others." Bolotin Joseph and Burnaford 5477.
Elbow, Peter. Writing With Power. New York: Oxford UP, CANDIDA GILLIS and CHERYL L. JOHNSON teach in the
1981. English Department at the University of Idaho, Moscow.
EJ 7 5 Years Ago
Studying the Life of a Fiction Writer
"The writer of fiction is no different from the rest of human kind, except to the degree to which his emotional suscep-
tibility is more heightened and his senses more discerning. He does not possess a different set of mental processes mys-
teriously comprehended in that word `genius.' Anyone may learn in varying degree the novelist's analysis of character
or the short-story writer's appreciation of situations. It is a perverted educational emphasis, indeed, which denies the
value of teaching students to understand life with some of the acumen of the fiction writer."
Luella B. Cook. "A Technique for Training in Thinking." EJ 16.8 (1927): 58898.
Censorship Exhibit
When planning your exhibits for Banned Books Week in September, you may wish to consider including the 20022003
edition of the exhibit Censorship in Schools and Libraries, published by the Long Island Coalition Against Cen-
sorship. This history highlights incidents of censorship that have occurred in the United States during the last one hun-
dred years, including descriptions of the censorship of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, In the Night Kitchen, The
Catcher in the Rye, and the novels of Judy Blume and Robert Cormier. US Supreme Court and lower court decisions
are an integral part of the exhibit.
The new edition includes efforts to censor the popular Harry Potter children's books (in December 2001, Harry
Potter books were burned in Alamagordo, New Mexico), and the installation of filtering software in all the computers
in the Loudon County, Virginia, Public Library. In addition to new cases, there is an update of censorship incidents in
libraries and schools that occurred throughout the 1990s.
For additional information, send an e-mail to coalcen@juno.com or write to the Long Island Coalition Against
Censorship, Donald Parker, Co-coordinator, PO Box 296, Port Washington, NY 11050.
English Journal 43