Role-Play Rubric
7.5 Golden Trumpets 61
I gave this section the heading, “Golden Trumpets,” because I felt at that time that golden trumpets were saluting me for beginning to re-envision myself and my role modelling. I wanted to keep this momentum going and so, on Monday, 31 March 2014, I engaged third-year students in a metaphor drawing activity. In order for them to gain a better understanding of themselves as teachers, I asked them to get into groups and choose a metaphor that best described themselves working in the classroom as teachers. Once they had drawn the metaphors on a sheet of paper, they had to write an explanation on why they chose the metaphor.
61 “Golden Trumpets” (Burnett, 1969, p. 162).
184
My reason for giving students the metaphor exercise was that I read Nevgi and Lӧfstrӧm’s (2013) ideas on how students’ metaphor drawings and students’ verbal metaphors correlate with each other and transpire from their self-images as teachers. I anticipated that using metaphor drawings and verbal metaphors together would help students produce a more enhanced view of their teacher identities. Nikitina and Furuoka (as cited in van Laren, 2014) informed me that there were a number of studies in “education and pedagogy” (p. 23) that used metaphors in the research design. Van Laren (2011) described how students expressed their personal thoughts and real experiences in their metaphor drawings.
I explained to students, after they had drawn a metaphor of themselves as teachers in the classroom, they had to work in groups and find a metaphor that best described me as their teacher educator.
They had to draw this metaphor and provide an explanation of why they chose that particular metaphor to represent me. My intention when asking students to work in a group and develop their metaphors was to foster social constructivist learning. While working together, they shared ideas and developed ideas about which metaphor to draw based on their collective background knowledge and experience. I anticipated that by bringing together their collective experiences and knowledge, students would be involved in social constructivist learning (Iannarelli & Piotrowski, 2013). Later that evening I read the students’ explanations and looked at their drawings. Some of these metaphor drawings really caught my attention. Students did a metaphor drawing (Figure 7.12) depicting me as a bright red Ferrari. They also did a metaphor drawing of me as a jacaranda tree (Figure 7.13).
Another group of students described me as an aeroplane and although they did not draw it, they wrote an explanation of why they depicted me as an aeroplane (Figure 7.14).
185 Figure 7.12 The Ferrari metaphor drawing
186 Figure 7.13 Metaphor drawing of me as a jacaranda tree
Figure 7.14 Metaphor description of me as an aeroplane
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My discussion with students on their metaphor drawings is portrayed in the vignette below.
Vignette: Discussion with students on metaphor drawing activity
I was very pleased, initially, that the students had chosen this metaphor of the Ferrari but, as I read their explanations, I became aware that some of my teaching styles and characteristics needed further reflection.
A theme that emerged from this metaphor drawing, firstly, was “powerful.” Students had said, “We see Mrs.
Hiralaal as this Ferrari because she is very powerful in her teaching.” They said that they could see I was very knowledgeable with regard to my subject content. When I asked how they related this to the Ferrari, they informed me that when you start up a Ferrari, immediately you can hear the engine has power and it will be fast. Likewise, when I began teaching, they could relax immediately and not worry because they knew that at the end of the lecture they would know so much more than they did previously. In the same vein, students also said that I am very fast—when I teach, I move at a very fast pace and sometimes they do not get a chance to absorb the content. I also seldom ask questions and when I do ask a question, I do not wait for answers but answer my own questions.
Some students described me as a jacaranda tree. They said this was because they felt that I am a very tough and strong teacher who can handle every situation in and outside the classroom just like a jacaranda tree that is able to handle a variety of soils and growing conditions. They claimed that because of this, “every single student develops a beautiful and long-lasting knowledge of accounting, as well as becomes a strong teacher.”
One group of students referred to me as an aeroplane although they did not draw the aeroplane but merely wrote an explanation [Figure 7.14]. They felt I was like an aeroplane because I am able to cover a lot of content in a short space of time. But they also felt that, sometimes, students get left behind because, whilst I am teaching, they do not grasp the content and need to take time out later by themselves and slowly work through what I am teaching.
I questioned students further on the metaphor activity as a teaching strategy. One student responded, “Mam, I liked this activity very much because I like to draw,” while another student responded quite differently: “I did not like it because I can’t draw, I did not do a metaphor drawing, I put in a copy of a picture from the Internet.” So, students had mixed feeling about the metaphor drawing activity.
I responded to students with this comment,
Like you, I was scared to draw. I had this fear that I was not creative. I would also download pictures from the Internet. But you know what, when I actually started drawing, I lost my fear because it was my picture, it was telling my story so if I wanted it to be upside down, so be it. The more
unprofessional your drawing, the more original and authentic it is. Because then, your focus is not on the quality of the drawing but on the message the drawing is trying to send to you and to others.
When you go for teaching practice next, try out some of these strategies in school and come back and tell me if they were effective or not.