2.5 My Word, That’s Riches 21
2.6.4 Metaphors and Metaphor Drawing
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shiny taps in the bathrooms. In my mind I saw my English teacher—who literally gave me back my life, my dignity, and my self-respect—dramatising a history lesson, and I could see myself and my friends all dressed up in our costumes acting out our poorly written plays (Chapter Four).
I also took photographs of my process of developing my first collage portrait (see later in this chapter). Creating the collage portrait was a very rewarding exercise for me because although I felt I had no artistic ability or creative abilities, I was able to use an arts-based research method. It was a thrill for me to photograph every step of the collage portrait-making process and, once I developed the skill of taking a photograph with my cell phone and sending it to my computer, I became an old hand at taking photographs and wanted to photograph everything. I even took photographs of myself in my bedroom in the middle of the night, rearranging my collage portrait because “photographs show us how things really are, they are seen as documenting reality and the truth” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003, p. 105). As Denzin (2001, p. 26) explained, “the meanings of lived experiences are inscribed and made visible in these photographs.”
I also took photographs of my accounting pedagogy teaching and learning activities (Chapters Seven and Eight). These photographs showed the transformation in my teaching activities as I introduced purposeful pedagogies from a social constructivist perspective. In order to protect the identities of the people in the photographs for ethical reasons, I used the “artistic effects” tool on my computer to blur the photographs and block some of the faces. Whilst the images are still visible, the faces are now unrecognisable.
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experienced the learning process. I used metaphors not only because it was different from their usual learning tools but because metaphor “is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another” (Larkoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 3).
Bowers (1993, p. 60) asserted, “All human thinking is both cultural and metaphorical in essence.”
He argued further, that the use of metaphor drawings in teacher research in the last decade has been increasing because asking students to draw their teachers working in the classroom can be a very effective way to help teachers transform their classroom practice by reflecting on the metaphor drawing.
Derry 2005 (as cited in Tidwell & Manke, 2009) explained that drawing in self-study research can help us to not only see ourselves clearly but to also perceive others. Hence, I used a metaphor drawing to represent a critical moment that I encountered while teaching. Developing a metaphor to express my emotions at the time of experiencing the critical moment helped me to understand the events surrounding the experience. I also perceived the experience from different perspectives and this helped me to overcome the feelings of insecurity I had experienced at the time. This was because I developed the critical moment experience into a conference paper and presented it at a national university teaching and learning conference (Chapter Nine). The response I received at the conference indicated to me that my metaphor drawing awakened much interest with the conference attendees and led to deep, rich, and interesting dialogue and discussions that not only opened my vision and thinking about alternative perspectives but quieted my insecurities of arts-based representations of research.
My personal experiences with the use of metaphors and metaphor drawings makes me agree with Gillis and Johnston (2002) who believed that “through metaphor, we meet ourselves” (p. 41). They also suggested that metaphors can give teacher educators clarity about their attitudes to teaching and show them how they “perceive their students and their colleagues” (2002, p. 40). They proposed that when using metaphors in a creative way, teachers can establish their own teaching philosophies, clarify their personal aims for teaching, and get a sense of their teaching practices. As shown in Chapters Seven and Nine, I experienced how metaphors can act as “springboards for change” (2002, p. 41).
61 2.6.5 Video Recording
According to Talanker (2013), video recording lessons in research about professional development is not new and has developed considerably in recent years due to the efforts invested in understanding teaching, teachers’ knowledge, and classroom dynamics. In addition, the technological advancements that have transformed video recording and storage, making it easily accessible and simple to use, have been instrumental in enhancing the use of video-recorded lessons for teachers’ professional development (Talanker, 2013).
The main reason I videotaped my lessons with my students was to try to see where the living contradiction in my teaching manifested itself. Whitehead (1989) explained that, when watching videotapes of your lecture sessions, you get to see yourself as the living contradiction. The living contradiction becomes apparent when you think you hold certain educational values but you do not put these educational values into practice in your classroom. Whitehead added, further, that videotaping your pedagogical activities is therefore instrumental in improving your pedagogic practice. He believed that when you watch the videos, you can “reconstruct your educational theory”
(p. 4) because the use of videotaped lessons allows you to make visible and discuss your educational practices with colleagues and critical friends. These colleagues and critical friends can assist you to point out areas where you are negating your educational values.
Moreover, as highlighted by Reid et al., (2015):
Video has a number of advantages over live viewing of teaching behaviour and over transcripts of lessons. Unlike watching lessons in a classroom, watching them on video makes it possible to view episodes of interest several times. They permit the representation of visual and concrete elements of teaching, as well as sound intensity, tone of voice, facial expression, chalkboard inscriptions and bodily gestures. Videos are especially useful for research because they provide the researchers, as observers, with another layer of data to work with in addition to transcripts, written lesson summaries and classroom observations. (Reid et al., 2015, pp. 367–368)
I found that video recording my lecture sessions was highly effective for improving my practice because when I recorded myself I was able to see myself as students saw me. Not only did this give me new insights into what I was doing well, but it also helped me to see the contradictions. By just watching myself, contradictions in my teaching became apparent—providing me with ample opportunity to reflect on how to improve myself and my practice. I had a prior image in my head of how I looked, sounded, and behaved, and the camera had a way of deconstructing that prior image.
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When I was teaching, I felt that I was in complete control of what I said and did. I felt I was a good role model and an effective teacher. Unfortunately, what I felt and what the reality was, were two different things. Watching myself on a video recording helped show me the reality (see Chapters Seven and Eight).
Hence, I found that one of the most tried and true methods for actually seeing what I did in the classroom was to watch myself doing it on video. Videotaping my lectures and conversations with my critical friends proved useful in providing documentation because when viewing a tape repeatedly, with each viewing I focused on different aspects—stopping and rewinding and coming back to an activity that caught my attention. This gave me an opportunity to self-reflect on the improvement I wanted to make and helped me identify further areas for improvement as well as pay attention to aspects that my critical friends drew my attention to.