Understanding the Black Teacher Through Metaphor

Teacher education scholars have long used the literary device of metaphor to describe the work of teachers. Metaphors offer colorful descriptions about the teacher and the profession of teaching. What also undergirds the use of metaphors about teaching is the underlying philosophies about the purpose of the teacher and teaching. We argue however, that race and culture inform the kind of metaphors one might use to describe the teacher . In this sense, racialized sociohistorical forces (Omi and Winant, Racial formation in the U.S., 3rd edn. Routledge, New York 2015) envelope the discourse of the teacher—particularly when deconstructing the metaphoric meaning of the “Black Teacher.” In this paper, we show how four metaphors took shape within historically situated contexts and have endured over time.