The Power of Metaphor

The neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran in his fascinating book “The Telltale Brain” describes the uniquely human capacity to create metaphors. It requires a sophisticated ability to juxtapose two seemingly unrelated concepts because they have some point of similarity at a deeper cognitive level.
An unopened bud is an evocative metaphor for a baby. Not because babies are green and grow on bushes, but because as babies grow they open up and reveal themselves, often revealing unexpected delights and great beauty.
To create or appreciate a metaphor we need to get below the obvious and the literal. We need to think in depth and to integrate our understanding and create links between previously disconnected bits of information.
In McREL’S ‘Classroom Instruction That Works’ we explore the powerful learning strategy of looking for similarities and differences. When we sort through new information and compare and classify it, we are making sense of what we are learning and finding sensible ways to connect this new knowledge with what we already know about the world.

The interpretation and, even more powerfully, the creation of metaphors, takes thinking to a different level of abstraction. It encourages students to look beyond the literal, to become more subtle and nuanced thinkers, There in lies the power of the metaphor in learning.
Which brings me back to an earlier blog about poets and about Einstein.
Where is our richest store of metaphor? In poetry. And how prominent is poetry in your curriculum? Is the focus on informational text relegating poetry to an optional extra?

Poetry has been a common thread running through the heart of every enlightened society. Not only because through poetry we are often able to touch the otherwise ineffable, sense the fleeting, more insubstantial but nonetheless essential aspects of lives. Poetry is the means by which we can learn to think beyond the literal and dig deeper into experience and our conceptual understanding of the world.

We deny our children much if we fail to foster their understanding of and love for poetry and metaphor.

The Current School Reform Landscape: Christopher H. Tienken

Reblogged from The Treehorn Express:

This video is about the USA educational scene, however it is very relevant, in most part, to New Zealand and Australia. A great watch.

‘Is it necessary to have every child master the same exact material at the same level of difficulty?

About Christopher Tienken, from his website:

Christopher Tienken, Ed.D. is an assistant professor of Education Administration at Seton Hall University in the College of Education and Human Services, Department of Education Management, Policy, and Leadership.

Read more… 191 more words

Got my wheels turning!

Canberra Private School Sets a Great Example on NAPLAN

Reblogged from The Treehorn Express:

Reposted from Save Our Schools Canberra.

Saturday May 11, 2013

A Canberra private school has sent the following letter to parents about the NAPLAN tests. It sets a great example for other schools in dealing with NAPLAN and informing parents that they can withdraw their child from the tests.

As partners with you in the education of your children, we want to keep you aware of current relevant educational thinking and research.

Read more… 315 more words

This letter to parents sets the role of NAPLAN into a clear context and tells parents exactly what their rights are.

Charles Dickens, NAPLAN, and the Corporatisation of Education.

Reblogged from The Treehorn Express:

DISTINGUISHED GUEST WRITER

 Paul Thomson. You’ll have seen him in action on TV  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-01/qld-parents-join-push-to-boycott-naplan/4663840?section=qld  Paul is the proud Principal of Kimberley College at Carbrook, a southern suburb of Brisbane. The College website is worth exploring

http://kimberleycollege.org/ as is a trip through its facebook ;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kimberley-College/125150257554227

Paul Thomson was previously a primary school principal, who had done the hard yards in the developmental apprenticeship system of  serving in many parts of Queensland, completing his service at Kimberley Park State School.

Read more… 1,378 more words

Thanks Paul.

A Forgotten Prophet

In 1967 Marshall McLuhan wrote this:

It is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word.The classroom is now in a vital struggle for survival with the immensely persuasive “outside” world created by new media. Education must shift from instruction, from imposing stencils, to discovery – to probing and exploration and to the recognition of the language of forms. The young today reject goals. They want roles. That is, total involvement. They do not want fragmented, specialized goals or jobs.

That’s 45 years ago.

It’s taking us a long time to understand the changes in the world and how they impact society and education.

It’s taking us a long time to appreciate the implications of a “clash of cataclysmic proportions between two great technologies” (McLuhan).

McLuhan said that we always approach new situations with the predilections and perceptions of the past, that we march into the future looking into the rear view mirror.

He argued that each new medium first has as its content the content of of its predecessor. The movies began as filmed stage plays. Television began as a way of showing movies. The news on TV began as a man in a smart suit reading the equivalent of the newspaper. Over time the medium gradually begins to take on its own identity. The news now takes us live to hot spots in the world and shows us the world as it is happening. Television is doing what it does best.

The same is true of the use of electronic media in schools.

How long will it be before we can see the Ipad as something more than a portable, efficient book? Many education systems are now turning to Ipads as an alternative to text books. Only a few are exploiting the unique qualities of the ipad to let students connect with the world and with one another.

The smart phone is not just a device for talking to people. It is a powerful means of discovering information, of participating with others, of exploration, and yet we make our kids turn them off as soon as they enter the school building.

McLuhan understood that we are made uncomfortable by the new, we often feel fearful. We make ourselves feel safer by getting the new media to do the familiar work of the old. But McLuhan was telling us 45 years ago that we need to wake up.

Why are we still using ipads as if they were books?

Flogging A Dead Horse

At a very recent meeting of the American Educational Research Association, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has freely admitted the problems associated with standardized testing. He described it as ‘mediocre’ and an inadequate way of determining student achievement, teacher proficiency or school effectiveness. He also acknowledged the suffocating effect of high stakes standardized testing on students and on teachers.

Perhaps of particular interest were his criticisms of the use of any one measure to determine the achievement of a student, a school or a teacher. He was absolutely clear about the need for multiple, varying types of measures if we want to get a valid picture of what is happening in education.

And so, for Australia, comes the obvious question. Why is a school’s ranking on the My School web site based on only a single measure, a standardized test?

Our government is committing itself more and more deeply (the NAPLAN testing of science comes next) to a system that has been adopted from the USA and then tried and found woefully wanting in the USA. Why?

Inspiration

I spent some time in an inspirational state primary school on the outskirts of Melbourne last Friday. It got me thinking about the inspirational moments in my own schooling and who the teachers were who inspired me … and why.

Grade 3 Mr Ross: I remember him writing us a letter from New Zealand where he was spending his holiday. When he came back to school he taught us a Maori song.

Grade 6 Mr Quinn: he was kind.

Year 7 Mr Ok***e: I spent a year with a caliper on one leg and he would ‘keep an eye on me’. I remember him letting me have his chair rather than sit on the floor during a whole school assembly and telling me I didn’t need to pick up papers during a litter drive.

Year 9 Mrs Burs***i: She taught us French, brought French cakes into school one day and lent me a paperback novel ‘Dickon Among the Indians’ because she thought I would enjoy it. She was also reputed to wander about her garden topless so there was a frisson of scandal about her.

Year 11 Mr Gr**t: because he was handsome and I was young and impressionable.

Year 12 Mr Ma****e: who would become so engrossed in his English literature class that he would mutter “Damn their eyes” when the bell rang mid conversation.

Year 12 Mrs Eng**h: She gave up her Saturday mornings to take me painting and came in an hour early one day a week to teach me. I was the only student in her year 12 Art class and she didn’t want to have me miss out on the opportunity to study Art.I have always felt I let her down because she said I was destined to become the first female director of the National Gallery.

Year 1 University: my English professor, a frail elderly man, entered the lecture theatre, stood behind the lectern and sang one of the Border ballads. It brought tears to my eyes because it was so moving.

What stands out in this recollection?

The teachers who inspired me did so because of their passion, their ability to extend my view of the world, but most of all because they connected with me as a person, they cared and they demonstrated their caring. That’s why I remember them. They knew me.

It’s a very long time since I was at school but some teachers have never deserted me, they continue to reside in a corner of my mind and form part of the network of experiences that have formed me and my view of what education should be about.

I keep hearing that relationships are at the heart of successful teaching.