by Wendy Sullivan Key learning points
What is metaphor? “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” - Lakoff & Johnson This definition is broad and includes stories, fables, similes, parables, and also non-verbal experiences that may be visual, auditory, or feeling/ movement-based. It includes the metaphors you generate and use in training to help participants learn, and those generated by your participants themselves. It is worth noting that while we have a degree of shared meaning for metaphors, there are individual differences: the details of exactly how I reach for the stars, and kind of stars they are, will be the different from what ‘reach for the stars’ means to you. Why bother with metaphors? Let’s start with a movement-based metaphor. Please put your hand in the air as high as you can. Now stretch another inch … this is what the thought-through use of metaphors can do for the success of your training. Here’s why:
"Metaphor, that's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.” - Gregory Bateson There is growing agreement that we understand one thing by comparing it with our experience of something else. So we can make learning easier if we provide participants with metaphors for what we want them to learn.
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