Journey as Metaphor

Teachers often use metaphors when they talk about their work. They use one conceptual category to describe or define another conceptual category. In Lakoff and Johnson’s landmark work Metaphors We Live By, the essence of metaphor is described as "understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another." Further, they purport that metaphor can be a guide for future action.

Judith Yero’s work reveals the notion that if a teacher believes that a lesson or learning in general is a journey, the metaphor of journey can take on other interpretations. When teachers believe that learning requires interaction with the environment, the trip becomes a journey of discovery instead of a flat out race across the landscape of a discipline. In this interpretation of metaphor, the teacher and students travel more or less together, along a somewhat defined route, making frequent stops along the way as students notice something of interest that they wish to explore. There are occasional interesting side trips to unexpected places. At times, groups pursue different paths and, after returning to the main road, report to the class about what they have found.

Because teaching is bound up with learning, it is, more times than not, the same for a teacher as for a student; learning is a journey of discovery. When we are open to the stops, to the detours, and side trips, we never reach a final destination, but rather, continue to learn and grow as we go along. In this way, if we pay close attention, our journey is meaningful and self-fulfilling. This, for me, is true. The journey is the metaphor I choose to live by, allowing for continued growth and exploration of new ideas, always learning and growing along the way.