Digging at the Roots: Discipline, Management, and Metaphor

The author describes and criticizes the influence of industrial metaphors in education and teacher education. He argues that education renewal requires the creation of new metaphors that represent teacher-student relationships quite different from those typically associated with discipline and management. An approach to preservice teacher education is briefly described that involves analyzing teaching metaphors as a means of exploring beginning teacher thinking and generating alternative conceptions of teaching. Finally, some of the difficulties involved in creating and institutionalizing alternative metaphors for teaching and learning are discussed.