Toward Wide-Awakeness

Thinking about What if teachers were thought of as the brain and heart surgeons that we are? 60-60-60 #46 and reflecting…

Yes, the metaphors abound. I bet it will take no time to fill in these blanks:

Teacher as ________________or ________________or ________________. I suspect that many of those blanks were filled with metaphors I have used in conversation, in presentations, and even here on this blog. And I think they’re helpful in framing the discussion…but only up to a point. In fact, one of the more impressive reflections I’ve read on teachers entitled Tending Our Gardens was posted just a few days ago by Tara S., a ninth grader and a very impressive writer. In her post, she beautifully adopts the metaphor of teacher as gardener and pays homage to the ethic of care that is so necessary in our schools. It’s posts like this one which gives me great hope that we will move past metaphor and into action.

A few months ago I ran across the Hyperakt’s marketing campaign to Rebrand Teachers. According to this design firm, which focuses on meaningful design for the common good,

Teachers are currently represented by uninspiring, childish visual imagery. Images like apples, chalkboards, and the ABCs neither revere the profession of teaching nor do justice to the intellectual and creative development teachers help guide in students of all ages…We began with a simple premise, that education is the key to human progress, therefore teaching is among the most important professions for humanity. Our new visual vocabulary should capture the excitement and magic of activating the potential that is innate in every student. It should celebrate the process of developing ideas, reflect the collaborative nature of teaching and pay homage to existing visual tools used in teaching.