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What’s a meta phor?
By audhill | October 7, 2007
David Warlick makes a metaphor… and I love it. He likens the way students approach their learning to the way they approach their food… to sustain them, fuel next steps perhaps? But, teachers wear the clothing of their learning. It defines them. I’d like to meditate on those images to reinforce my own understanding. (if the metaphor falls down, it’s okay… it will get back up)
So…. students consume learning as food.. They are what they eat. It matters what they learn, but they’ll take as much sustenance out of it as they can metabolize. Children often live on sugar and happy meals. Their parents allow it to manage them, because it’s easier, because it gives them pleasure. Adults learn to eat better as they age; they are forced by girth and accumulated error to find good habits for themselves. Still, we might ask… can we give our children a better start than we had… the healthier the initial habit, the healthier the child and adult that child will become. What we feed them or they feed themselves… does it meet the requirements for healthy living. Have we taught them to appreciate better food, or will they have to learn that lesson on their own or not at all? Wonderbread or 9 grain? Fresh veggies or big macs?Two objectives: survival and delight. In that sense, what we teach them or what they choose to learn defines them… prepares them for the next step (when food becomes clothing)
Adult relationship to knowledge as clothing… it adorns and defines us. It forms to our bodies (which were, to a great extent, created by earlier choices made by us and for us). In reality it is less a part of ourselves than our food, but it feels like more. It adds to or detracts from self concept. It is external, but a necessary augment. What we know and what we do with what we know represents the inner us to an outer world. What do we want our clothes and our knowledge to do? To establish us or be a tool… are we concerned with the right tie or the best cleats?
What is in my intellectual closet? Will my knowledge wear well?
Topics: for fun |