The epistemic role of novel metaphors in teachers’ knowledge constructions of school reform

Abstract

In this article, a parallel is drawn between Steven Hawking’s use of common and novel metaphors in his evolving explanation of the theory of the universe and the similar use of common and novel metaphors by educators in four school contexts attempting to illuminate their experiences of school reform storied and restoried over time. The epistemic role of novel metaphors is unpacked through examining the plotlines of the metaphors, the morals of the metaphors, the freedom of the metaphors and the teacher knowledge implications resident in the live metaphorical utterances. Through the use of self‐selected novel metaphors, both Hawking and the educators merged propositional and non‐propositional knowledge that was bound up in persons—and communicated across people—in deceptively simple, though infinitely complex, ways.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the centrality of the school‐based educators’ experience and the importance of their active participation in the narrative inquiries. This research was supported by reform movement funding channeled through T. P. Yaeger Middle School, Hardy Academy and Eagle High School and through a major state university that supported my evaluation study at Destiny High School. The topic of this paper is discussed at length in Craig (2003).

Notes

* 304E Farish Hall, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204‐5027, USA. Email: [email protected]

‘Brane new world’ is Steven Hawking’s (2003) scientific explanation of the world; Brave New World was Aldous Huxley’s (1934) literary vision of the world.

The word, metaphor, is derived from the Greek word, metapherein, meaning ‘to carry across’.

Aristotle, Rhetoric III, 141b.

The monkey’s paw (Jacobs, 1912) is a classic British short story that chronicles what happens when people are not satisfied with that they have.

Dueling banjos, originally titled Feuding banjos, is a bluegrass tune written and performed by Don Reno and Arthur Smith and used without their permission in the movie, Deliverance. Reno and Smith sued the film company for rights infringement and won. See www.filmsite.org/deli.html.

Deliverance, written by James Dickey and produced by John Boorman, was a popular adult action‐adventure movie released in 1972. It was nominated for three Oscars—best picture, best director and best film editing—but received no awards.

An American Bookseller Book of the Year Award winner, The rainbow fish is a tale about the most beautiful fish in the ocean and its difficulty in learning to share with others.

I use the word ‘original’ in a guarded fashion. The monkey’s paw, for example, clearly arose from the oral tradition (Fletcher, 1996).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was the 1970 Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cheryl J. Craig *

* 304E Farish Hall, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204‐5027, USA. Email: [email protected]