Metaphor of Education

Siemen’s (2008) “Metaphor of Education” that most stands out to me is the educator as “curator”. Having spent several years studying the pedagogy of Reggio Emilia and the Hundred Languages of Children, I believe that children learn through experiencing their topic of interest. The Reggio approach comes from Italy and believes that children learn through representing their learning on a topic through media, discussion, art, writing, the building of concepts and background about their learning, and much more. It is commonly referred to as the project approach in the states.
The curator is the subject matter expert and acts as the facilitator of knowledge. I feel that it is the most prescriptive of the metaphors offered. The “teacher” provides opportunities for the learner to come to their own conclusion and solutions to answer a question. The teacher provides resources and experiences that are directly related to the needs of the learner. The learner has the option of representing their acquired knowledge through a variety of modalities. Learning is fluid and constantly building off of previous knowledge.
As I was trying to think of my own metaphor, I first thought of a cook, mixing all those flavors together and experimenting with combinations as a learner does as they sift through information. However, once the ingredients are mixed together, they become one and it is difficult to distinguish one ingredient (idea) from the other. I thought about a sculptor. A sculptor can change designs and learn from misconceptions. All strong traits for a learner, but when they start over, they have to completely erase the first design and knowledge is built off of all conceptions, including misconceptions. I settled on the metaphor of the educator as a sailor.
A sailor draws on knowledge to maintain a constant momentum; similar to the drive of the learner. A sailor is a master of knowledge, but has to continuously look to the environment to build new concepts because he is in an ever changing environment. The sailor draws from past experiences to make sense of current knowledge, but must use current situations to determine if the current understanding holds up or if he has to form a new idea based on current events. A sailor has many tools to draw from. His equipment is vast and with the right use of what is available, he can make predictions and draw conclusions from the results. He interacts with his learning and is constantly evaluating the current situation to reconstruct his previous knowledge.


Siemens, G. (2008, January 27). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. Paper presented to ITFORUM. Retrieved from
http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/Paper105/Siemens.pdf