Teaching in a Culture Hypersensitive to Power Relations: Learning From Preservice Teachers' Metaphors

• In Event: 61.033 - Metaphors of Learning in the Professions: Psychologists, Teachers, Policy Makers, and Artists Compared

Abstract

What do teachers ‘do’ (to students)?

This paper examines empirically the metaphors pre-service teachers use to argue what teaching should and shouldn’t be. Scholars have examined metaphors of teaching (Bowman, 1996), of learning (Sfard, 1998), and of education systems as a whole (Holt, 1991). However, little attention has been given to the relational aspects of the act of teaching – teaching as doing to others, contributing to their development, mediating the world, adding to their knowledge, and so on.

Method

The data presented here were drawn from an exploratory, qualitative study of the practice journals of pre-service teachers. Students in a university course on "Teaching Humanities in Israeli High Schools" were asked to reflect in their journals on challenges they faced in teaching in their pre-service training classes. The journals were subjected to qualitative content analysis, with a focus on identifying metaphors of the act of teaching.
Findings
In general, the language the pre-service teachers used to describe the act of teaching indicated their fear of the power relations between them and their students. Metaphors of growth and nourishment were common. However, while such metaphors have both positive and negative aspects, the pre-service teachers viewed them solely as negative.

Below are some representative journal excerpts:

Ruth: I deliberated, wondering whether, if this idea came from me, the lesson might be too biased, that is, it would be an attempt to sow in the student’s heads my own ideas.

Dana: …because my job is only to give data, from which the student can draw conclusions by himself, without “spoon-feeding” him.

Natan: No matter how I try to be “pure” and without bias … inevitably I will affect how this [historical] incident will be presented to my students.

These excerpts characterize the teachers as being in constant danger of imposing themselves illegitimately on the students.

Discussion
The negative metaphors of teaching cited above should concern teacher educators. They can minimize both teacher and student responsibility and engender a paralysing atmosphere, in which teachers self-censor and intentionally limit their influence.
Bell Hooks (2010) reminds us that "we are not all equals in the classroom." She calls for a partnership in which the teacher's power is used to empower and not disempower. To this end, teacher educators should consider devoting explicit attention to the metaphors of teaching they and their students use and to generating positive ones together. As Hooks (2010, p. 114) puts it:
We must be willing to acknowledge the hierarchy that is a real fact of our different status, while at the same time showing that difference in status need not lead to domination or any abuse of power.

Author

• Chava Shane, Mandel Leadership Institute