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Darren Atwaroo27/07/10 96738500 Reflections: Identifying your teaching metaphor I am a heart and my students are the blood that flows through me. As they pass knowledge is pushed through them. I am a fisherfolk and my students are the fish. I try to nourish them by providing bait of different types if they accept it knowledge is obtained. These are just some the metaphors my colleagues’ used to describe themselves in the classroom. Our assignment today was to best describe a metaphor that describes us a teacher.
We also identified which teaching orientations we practiced. I used the analogy of a football coach. Like a teacher, the coach tries to mould his players into successful and professional players. He encourages his players to set goals and identify ways in which to achieve them. He highlights personal development through team work and allows players to express themselves on the field by developing their special skills and talents. During our discussions we realised that our teaching metaphor is not cast in stone.
As you might consider yourself a gardener today and a drill master tomorrow. For me sometimes my teaching metaphor changes while teaching the same class. As unnecessary and loud disruptions begin, my soft and patient nature suddenly becomes hard and forceful. I am now considering weather or not this Jekyll and Hyde persona is helping my students to improve their growth or keeps boxed in. sure the noise is distracting, but what if I don’t stop them? What might happen after the laughing and singing? A discussion on the topic might begin.
Some word, phrase or diagram that sir used might be interesting to them and they might start to talk about it. Through these interactions I feel that learning must be taking place. I should encourage this more in my classroom. My teaching methods were mainly aligned to the power oriented metaphor where I am in charge of the learning environment. Research has found children learn best through their interactions and experiences. Let them be involved in the process of learning, let them to some extent be responsible for shaping their own abilities- through the art of doing.
I may now have to integrate an artist approach to my power metaphor. Time to be creative. I am thinking that learning takes place in stages. At the first stage you are given basic information. Only when the learning is able to master this basic information movement to a different stage becomes possible. It is like a stage process, building on knowledge at each stage as you move on. The teacher makes movement possible by being creative and allowing student think critically.