Although they both rank high on the concepts of choice and liberation, a flower “develops naturally” whereas a
gardener “waters and nurtures” the seed to ensure development, thus the gardener metaphor implies more teacher
direction. Furthermore, the most fascinating sub-category of metaphors that was not found in the sub-sample was
the intersection of “teacher selfhood” and “liberation,” which contained an inversion of the flower/gardener
metaphor: “Teaching is like dancing, because you learn as you go.” Another metaphor in this category likened
teachers as a diamond in the rough.
To what extent did the proportion of particular metaphorical themes vary among the three universities?
Visually, as can be seen in Figure 2, the overall trend on the pre-semester metaphors was that students at
University A tended to pick metaphors that incorporated an emphasis on “literacy,” with more emphasis on
“liberation” then the other two universities. On the chart this means metaphors congregated in the upper left corner.
Students at University B had a large grouping in the middle of the chart which represents the confluence of
“constructivist teaching” and “existentialism.” There were also large blocks of students down near the bottom right
who chose “direct teaching” in either an “action” or “concrete” way. In contrast, students at University C tended to
focus on “self-hood” in a “existentialist” or “action” sort of way (i.e. teaching is a journey or roller coaster), which
means the metaphors congregated in the lower right.
Numerically, students at University A chose “liberation” as their first-choice pre-subtopic 32.4 percent of the
time. This is mirrored by the students at University B (35.4 percent), but it is drastically different than the students at
University C where the percentage was 12.8 percent. In contrast, 12.8 percent of the students at Unive