Over the past two years, I have had the pleasure of working as a non-certified teacher teaching on call (TTOC) within School District #28, Quesnel.  I have been called to dozens of classrooms, from kindergarten to grade 12, and have had the opportunity to teach a variety of learners and subjects.  It has been a wonderful experience and I have learned and grown so much—and heard many metaphors! When the subject of metaphors and teaching was addressed in our first EDUC 394 lecture, I was super enthused and excited to discuss and share my personal metaphor of choice.  But before I get to that, I want to touch upon a few metaphors that I have heard echo off school and administration walls over the past few years.  These metaphors have, in their own right and at certain moments in time, rang true in my journey and have contributed to, and shaped the metaphor I feel close to my heart today—that of teacher as astronomer/astronaut.

I encountered my first metaphors while being interviewed for my current TTOC position.  I had no official classroom experience on my resume, but I did have volunteer coaching listed and so my interviewer reassured me that being a teacher was like being a coach.  Teachers, like coaches, support and encourage their students; they cheer them on and lift them up when they feel down.  Teachers, like coaches, are knowledgeable and skilled in what they do and it is their love of knowledge and skills that motivates them to pass it on to the youth they work with.  Teachers, like coaches, come up with practice and game plans, but ultimately a teacher needs her students, like a coach needs her players, to show up, participate, engage and want to learn—and thus it is up to coaches and teachers to ensure that the learning environment is accessible to all, engaging, enjoyable, and fun.

My interviewer also noticed the six-year gap on my resume, a hiatus from the workforce where I had been raising my three young children on a full-time basis.  A conversation of motherhood ensued and I was assured that my unpaid work in the home would not go unnoticed in the classroom as teaching was, essentially, a caring profession—that is, teachers are caregivers.  Teachers, like parents and guardians, are responsible for those in their care.  It is the job of the teacher and caregiver to ensure that, first and foremost, children’s needs are met and of utmost importance; that children feel safe (emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually); that they are protected, nurtured, respected, and given every opportunity to become fully engaged and active citizens of their communities.  Teachers, like caregivers, help children see and realize their own potential while understanding that it is not their perceived needs for the child that matters, but the actual needs of the child.

After much reassuring talk, the interviewer moved to tougher questions, asking how I handled stressful and unpredictable situations, as “teaching is often tough and being a teacher is not always smooth sailing.”  Teacher as sailor, like discussed in class, has many parallels.  The sea is rough and unpredictable, as are classrooms, and thus sailor and teacher must be prepared for anything.  Exploring unchartered waters and getting off-course are facts of life for a sailor, as they are for a teacher, so both have to be skilled and resourceful.  A sailor cannot predict the weather, just as a teacher cannot always predict the climate of her classroom or how students will engage, adapt, behave, and so forth.  My interviewer continued, saying that the challenges of being a classroom teacher would be compounded for me, given the fact that I was uncertified and lacked the teacher-training gained in a School of Education program.

Yet, at the end of the interview, I was hired on the premise that I would do all I could to fill my toolkit (teacher as carpenter, mechanic, and sculptor all came to mind).  I immediately set about garnering the skills and gathering the resources I needed to be successful in the classroom: attending professional development days and sessions with guest speakers; shadowing teachers with a wealth of expertise; sitting in the basement of the District Administration Office, scouring teaching and learning resources for days; and collaborating with as many teacher-colleagues as I could, trying my best to absorb information like a thirsty sponge. 

Despite my efforts, there were moments (sometimes entire workdays) in those first few months where I felt as though I had been “thrown into the deep end”, where I questioned my ability to stay afloat.  Thankfully, I did not drown, but it was not my swimming skills alone that got me through.  I had a sturdy raft, in the form of amazing teacher-colleagues, that came to my rescue when I needed support.  It was here where I started to see another metaphor emerging—that of teacher as lifeboat.  I had been on the receiving end of the lifeboat as a new teacher learning from teachers, and eventually I started experiencing instances where I was the lifeboat for my students.  Helping them stay afloat during their days at school, ensuring they had the resources and support they needed to be successful in the classroom.

As the months went by, and the months turned into years, I slowly I started to develop a metaphor of my own—that of teacher as astronomer/astronaut:

Astronomers are scientists who study the universe, its objects and how it works. They aim to push the boundaries of human knowledge about how the universe works by observation and theoretical modelling.  Astronomers rarely work in isolation, and in addition to being aware of what colleagues at your institution do, astronomers are expected to keep up with the published literature from around the world and to be able to put their research work into the context of other research (Prospects).

For astronomers, the focus is the universe, its objects and how it works.  For teachers the focus is the classroom (which often seems as broad as the universe), its objects (children, like the stars and planets, numerous, varied, and unique), and how they work (individually and collectively).  Like astronomers, teachers push the boundaries of knowledge about how things work by both observation and theoretical modelling.  Teachers, like astronomers, rarely work in isolation as they collaborate with colleagues in their schools, districts, provinces, countries, and global professional community.  Teachers, like astronomers, are expected to keep up to date on evidence-based research in their field.  In addition to research, teachers and astronomers both embark on guided exploration: astronauts exploring space and its objects; teachers exploring classrooms and the students within them. 

Astronomers look to the stars and planets to guide them, while teachers look to their students—their stars—to guide them and their work.  Every student, like every star in the night sky, gives off their own light within the classroom.  Some students shine brighter on different days and at different times, but each one has light within them.  Each student, like each star, is unique—no two the same:

The best tool we have for studying a star’s light is the star’s spectrum.  A spectrum (the plural is “spectra”) of a star is like the star’s fingerprint.  Just like each person has unique fingerprints, each star has a unique spectrum.  Spectra can be used to tell two stars apart, but spectra can also show what two stars have in common. […] Stars do not give off the same amount of light at every wavelength. […] A typical spectrum for a star has a lot of peaks and valleys (Sky Server).

Throughout a teacher’s life, she will come in contact with many unique fingerprints and a spectrum of differences.  She will see the peaks and the valleys and meet each student where they are, knowing that as some stars shoot, others will fall.  But, no matter what, she must continue to focus on the stars in front of her—for these stars are shining and they continue to give her hope and purpose.

Therefore, while I have used other metaphors—teacher as zookeeper or cat herder (usually referenced playfully when teaching in kindergarten or grade 1); teacher as referee or fireman (after a day spent mediating squabbles between students or putting out “fires”); and teacher as compass (when I have had the opportunity to guide children in their educational journeys)—I hold the metaphors I have detailed above closest to my heart.  These metaphors touch upon who I am as a person and, as Parker Palmer (1997) eloquently details, teachers teach who they are!!

References

Palmer, P.J. (1997).  The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching.  Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 29(6), 14-21.

Prospects.  Job Profile: Astronomer.  Retrieved from https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/astronomer on September 18, 2021.

Sky Server by Sloan Digital Sky Survey.  Types of Stars.  Retrieved fromhttp://skyserver.sdss.org/dr1/en/proj/basic/spectraltypes/ on September 18, 2021.