Last week our group moderated discussion on Reflection and Evaluation. I was responsible for the section on metaphors. The other topics were reflection, peer and self-assessment, portfolios and journals – which were all issues that I could connect to right away as part of my professional practice. However, ‘metaphors as a way of reflection’ was sort of new to me. It gave me a renewed sense of interest towards analysis and interpretation. It would seem that assigning a metaphor to a situation, event or object (concrete or abstract) would limit the latter to the boundaries of the metaphor. But, when I attempted the application, I found that it actually broadens up one’s perspective of the situation. It helps one make connections to things that one understands more concretely than the object being studied, and thus aids in bringing the new learning to the existing mental schema.
In my religious upbringing (Hindu Vedic), I have been taught to understand reincarnation as rebirth on the basis of one’s actions. Whatever one does can thus be likened to either an act deserving human birth in the future or befitting merely another living soul. In that sense, I have often used metaphoric language to describe my daily activities. This course reminisced me of those spiritual understandings. I now see how delimiting our understanding can be an elevating process, giving us new dimensions to think of, taking us towards holistic development.
My hope is to create a metaphoric resource for the individual project that would help me continue using this form of reflection in the future as well.
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