The Spiral: My Teaching and Learning Metaphor
I always return to the spiral when thinking about a metaphor for teaching and learning. I’ve used the spiral before as a metaphor for my first ever ePortfolio (2009) and was trying to come up with something different for the sake of creativity and new connections. I tried the owl as metaphor for its wisdom and perspective. I tried to turn a book title, The Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink into a metaphor. I tried to make the concept of fluency work as metaphor. Everything I tried felt like contortion. Nothing feels as good as the spiral.
And so the spiral it is: my persistent, insistent metaphor for teaching and learning.
I imagine the structure of education, learning and life itself to be spiral like. As a life long learner I value returning to past ideas and stories with new ones in order to constantly engage in (re)constructing and (re)connecting my thinking, perspective and understanding. I move away from a linear approach despite its pervasiveness in Western thinking. The spiral embodies complexity and simplicity, inwardness and outwardness, returning and moving on. In nature the spiral is an example of balance and beauty, efficiently using and generating energy through growth.
I love this spiral-inspired quote: “Reculez pour mieux sauter.” The idea is that, like a spiral, we return or go back (though always with new eyes) in order to enrich our moving forward.
And so the spiral it is: my persistent, insistent metaphor for teaching and learning.
I imagine the structure of education, learning and life itself to be spiral like. As a life long learner I value returning to past ideas and stories with new ones in order to constantly engage in (re)constructing and (re)connecting my thinking, perspective and understanding. I move away from a linear approach despite its pervasiveness in Western thinking. The spiral embodies complexity and simplicity, inwardness and outwardness, returning and moving on. In nature the spiral is an example of balance and beauty, efficiently using and generating energy through growth.
I love this spiral-inspired quote: “Reculez pour mieux sauter.” The idea is that, like a spiral, we return or go back (though always with new eyes) in order to enrich our moving forward.