School Metaphors. How Teachers Perceive Schools

One of the possible explanations for misunderstanding concerning education is communication process in which different actors use different languages. The author suggests that it is advisable to take closer look at teachers' metaphors about teaching because those metaphors reflect and determine their style of thinking as well as their language. Metaphors help to explore unknown areas. The commonly accepted metaphor describes and - at the same time - creates reality. It could be useful to convince teachers to reflect on their own metaphors of education to uncover how they create both their own and school reality. The author asked teachers to complete simple sentence: teaching is like... and based on their answers he drafted a few categories of metaphors used by teachers. He claims that judging by metaphors we can imagine a school that particular author of metaphor is working in. The subjective interpretation of teachers' metaphors and their consequences for school life as well as teaching-learning style is provided in the article. At the end the athor deliberates whether it is possible to adjust management style to school climates defined in teachers' metaphors. Finally he gives some recommendations.