Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Cook-­Sather, Alison

doi:10.1111/1467-9620.00274

Cited by 70 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…We agree with Hardcastle, Yamamoto, Parkay & Chan (1985), and Cook-Sather (2003) that metaphors are the larger constructs under which people organize their thinking and from which they plan their actions on the multiple environments in which they participate including, to some extent, how they teach and work with students.…”

Section: Metaphorssupporting

confidence: 52%

“…In our data we found that the teaching context contributed to the reaffirmation of beliefs with only some slight changes in basic conceptualizations of teaching and children over the two years of study three. These beliefs and conceptual metaphors of both Svetlana and Juan stand in stark contrast to the findings of Cook-Sather (2003). It is her conclusion that the two metaphors that historically and currently still dominate U.S. schooling are (a) education as production with the school as a factory and (b) education as remedy with students as diseased individuals in need of a cure.…”

Section: Case Study I: Svetlanamentioning

confidence: 88%

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Making sense of teaching through metaphors: a review across three studies

Mahlios

Massengill‐Shaw

Barry

2010

Teachers and Teaching

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to synthesize findings from three studies that have addressed the conceptualization and application of the metaphor construct to the study of teachers and teaching. We specifically examined the perspectives of elementary and secondary preservice teachers, how the particular metaphors indicated conceptualizations of and orientations to classroom life, and how metaphors influenced teachers' approaches to teaching, curriculum and their work with pupils. We frame the discussion in light of the larger literature on the relationship of beliefs and practices as it relates to learning to teach and teacher education. The paper provides implications for linking the research reported with contemporary ideas for teaching and teacher preparation. 2Over the past two decades researchers and teacher educators have shown increasing interest in metaphor research as a means to better understand how teachers conceptualize their most basic views about schooling, life, children, curriculum and teaching. There is a growing body of international literature that supports the study and use of teacher's metaphorical images in understanding how they conceptualize their work and themselves in that work (Inbar, 1996;Martinez, Sauleda, & Huber, 2001;Oxford, Tomlinson, Barcelos, Harrington, Lavine, Saleh, & Longhini, 1998;Saban, Kocbeker, & Saban, 2007). More recently researchers have followed teachers into their classrooms to see where and how metaphorical images held by teachers influence their interactions with children and their actual teaching practices. This paper will synthesize findings from three studies that have addressed the conceptualization and application of the metaphor construct to the study of teachers and teaching. Further, the paper will provide some implications for linking the research reported with contemporary ideas for teaching and teacher preparation. MetaphorsOne way of examining preservice teachers' beliefs is to identify the conceptual devices they use to make sense of their work and lives. Perhaps the most potent of these devices is the metaphor. For the purposes of this line of research, metaphor refers to those analogic devices that lie beneath the surface of a person's awareness, and serve as a means for framing and defining experiences (Hardcastle, Yamamoto, Parkay, & Chan, 1985;Neisser, 2003;Yamamoto, Hardcastle, Muehl, & Muehl, 1990). Teacher beliefs are derived from held metaphors (and relationships between them) and are what teachers believe to be true about their work. Much of the earlier research has focused on preservice teachers who have already been enrolled in several education courses, or on in-service teachers (e.g., Bullough, 1991). Less research has focused on Humans use words and images to interpret life, their experiences, and even their sense of self. "Metaphor," according to Yob (2003), "is employed when one wants to explore and understand something esoteric, abstract, novel or highly speculative…Knowing and how human beings come to know (education) are ...

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Section: Metaphorssupporting

confidence: 52%

Section: Case Study I: Svetlanamentioning

confidence: 88%

Making sense of teaching through metaphors: a review across three studies

Mahlios

Massengill‐Shaw

Barry

2010

Teachers and Teaching

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“…Likewise, de Guerrero and Villamil (2002) elicited and reported metaphors from 22 Puerto Rican teachers about teachers' and learners' roles and called attention to the merits of such information in the professional development of language teachers and the enhancement of their practice. Cook-Sather (2003) posited that two metaphors dominated the formal educational system in the United States, that is, "education as production" and "education as cure." In the field of foreign language teaching, Herron (1982) identified two basic metaphors driving curriculum theories in foreign language education: "the mind-body metaphor," in which language learning is viewed as mental gymnastics aimed to strengthen and discipline the learner's mind and "the production metaphor," where the aim of language learning was to produce a marketable and skillful workforce.…”

Section: Metaphor Studies In Language Teaching and Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

EFL learners’ metaphors and images about foreign language learning

Farjami

2012

SSLLT

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In this paper, I will argue that awareness of images and metaphors held by foreign language learners about the nature of the target language and its learning can be of substantial value and provide teaching practitioners with useful insights about how to deal with various language learning problems. To elicit images which learners hold about foreign language learning, a questionnaire was given to 350 learners of English in different places in Iran. The questionnaire asked the respondents to provide images about learning a foreign language by using a sentence completion task: "Learning a foreign language is like . . ." The responses gained in 200 questionnaires were content-analyzed and the identified images and metaphors were summarized under more broad-ranging categories. The information that the metaphors and the resulting metaphorical categories provide and the theoretical interpretations which can plausibly be made are discussed in some detail and put in a cognitive-psychological perspective.Keywords: conceptual metaphor, foreign language learning, language learners' images, language learners' metaphors, learners' beliefs, metaphor analysisThe study of language learners' beliefs and thought processes has been of interest to researchers for several decades and has recently gathered increased momentum (e.g., Berry, 2004;Cotterall, 1999;Finkbeiner, 2003;Fortune, 2005;Hawkins, 1999;Liao, 2006; Svalberg, 2005). Direct questionnaires tapping into learners' beliefs about different dimensions of language learning (e.g., Horwitz,

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“…Teachers who conceptualise classroom communication according to the ShannonWeaver model -as a process of sending and receiving information -are prone to view the teaching process mostly as a process of transmitting knowledge to the students. Metaphors, present at all levels of the educational discourse (Block, 1992;Ben-Peretz, Mendelson & Kron, 2003;Chen, 2003) can help teachers to articulate and construct their professional experiences (Kramsh, 2003;Nikitina & Furuoka, 2008) and guide their teaching practice (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999;Tăușan, 2011;Cook-Sather, 2003;Badley & Van Brummelen, 2012 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphors About Teachers' Role and Didactic Interactions in Primary School

Todor¹

2017

The European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences

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In a major book in cognitive linguistics, Metaphors We Live By, Johnson (1980/2008) argue that metaphors are a common presence in every-day language, as well as fundamental mechanisms of the mind, shaping our understanding of experience and giving sense to the word. Arguing for the metaphorical nature of our conceptual system, the authors point out that our ordinary language is filled with metaphors even if we are not aware of their use and these metaphors shape the way we perceive the surrounding reality, the way we think, the way in which we relate to others and the way we act. Metaphors about education are present in the didactic discourse in schools and in the discourse about education in various contexts (teacher-parent interactions, media, literature). The presence of metaphors in classroom discourse, as well as their socio-cognitive functions and educational implications, have been illustrated by Badley and Brummelen (2012) in a book entitled, by analogy: Metaphors We Teach By: How Metaphors Shape What We Do in Classrooms. Starting from this theoretical background, the present study aims to investigate the presence of metaphors, as mental representations of primary school teachers, on two dimensions: teachers' role and teacher-student classroom interactions. The study sample includes 105 primary school teachers, selected on a voluntary participation basis from Romanian public schools (Alba and Hunedoara counties). The results are discussed in relation to their potential relevance for creating more reflexive teachers and for the optimization of the teaching practice.

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Movements of Mind: The Matrix, Metaphors, and Re-imagining Education

Cited by 70 publications

References 47 publications

Making sense of teaching through metaphors: a review across three studies

Making sense of teaching through metaphors: a review across three studies

EFL learners’ metaphors and images about foreign language learning

Metaphors About Teachers' Role and Didactic Interactions in Primary School

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