Читать книгу Figure It Out - Stephen P. Anderson - Страница 50

If studies show that metaphors do seem to shape our thinking, shouldn’t we be more cautious—and intentional—about the associations we evoke? This is the takeaway: we should learn to be aware of and wary of words we commonly use. Why do we talk about our “target” audience—is it healthy to think about customers as prey to be hunted? How does this influence how we later think about and treat these customers? Or what about this statement, usually from well-meaning teachers: “It’s time to stop playing and get back to work.” Implied in this statement is that learning isn’t fun or that play isn’t learning. Is that a message we want to reinforce? From the work of folks such as game designer Raph Koster⁸ to an expert on the topic of play such as Stuart Brown, M.D., the conclusion is the same: we know that playing is learning and learning is play. Look at students engaged with a subject or making things, and you’ll see students caught up in the flow state associated with play. Serious question: How much authentic learning can take place when learning is framed as labor?

More subtle (and perhaps more controversial), consider how we talk about public education. Aren’t phrases like “learning standards” and “raising the bar” rooted in a business or factory-like view of teaching? Is this a realistic analogy, given that student attendance is compulsory, and schools cannot simply choose to hire or fire students, as with employees? How do we reconcile treating students like workers in a factory with all we now know about learning differences, special needs, personalized learning, and the like?

Or consider phrases like “I won the argument” or “He backed down.” Why do we tend to view conflict as a fight, where one person must beat the other person? What if we viewed conflicts as a puzzle to be solved, and doing so required sorting out the experiences and beliefs that have led to the conflicting conclusions?

So yes, metaphors can trigger emotions; they also shape how we reason about something, and perhaps even affect the decisions we make. But how does this help us figure things out?

Changing the metaphor changes our thinking. And when we change our thinking, we see new possibilities. Metaphors can reduce the cost of understanding by bridging what we do know with something we don’t yet know. But this reduced cost in understanding comes at a price: this metaphor will only work to a point, and then it limits our understanding. This is only a way to view a topic. The lesson? Use metaphors with care. The tricky part is how embedded these metaphors are in our language (and in our thoughts). But view this as a challenge⁹ from us, to be vigilant and intentional with the words we choose, and the frames they invoke.