Metaphor: powerful imagery bringing learning and teaching to life

Metaphor: powerful imagery bringing learning and teaching to life

Using metaphor to clarify pedagogical understanding and to anchor teacher beliefs and knowledge to meaningful contextualized mental maps can have powerful consequences in schools. Frequent changes in school staff and clientele present schools with the challenge of how to share culturally specific messages quickly and effectively to those new to the school, whether staff, students or parents. Conscious collective use of metaphor within a school's meaning-making system has been found to be one of the possible answers. This article explores the use of metaphorical visions within schools that have undertaken the Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievement in Schools (IDEAS) Project and how the linking of metaphor to understandings of schoolwide practices creates cognitive connections capable of facilitating collective understandings. The duality of meaning through metaphor facilitates a cognitive 'Place' where new and old understandings can be shared, explored and enriched. A skilfully chosen and well investigated rich metaphor can capture the essence of what a school community believes to be important for student success. This essence can be shared, refined, reflected upon and used to guide and align understandings of practice. The findings show that the strong reinforcement of cognitive links through the use of metaphor may also sustain cultural understandings of pedagogical practice over the long term.

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