Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Although the authors conclude their article with the following passage, it is
unclear whether, in the final sentence, they are using the term model in a
metaphorical way:
Our own lack of attention to the metaphorical nature of a particular model can blind us as
teachers to certain misunderstandings of students. As we use models in teaching, it may be
important to recognize that the leading edge, and perhaps
the most important part of the
model for students
,
is the metaphor
. Indeed, we might say that where we use models in our
teaching, the metaphor is the currency of the teacher-student transaction. [582]
Indeed, they introduce a metaphor, i.e., the
currency
of a transaction, to charac-
terize their own use of metaphor. This would seem to reinforce Bailer-Jones
'
closing statement which exhorts us to consider whether model may be as ubiquitous
in science as metaphor is acknowledged to be in language. Furthermore, Bhushan
and Rosenfeld
s currency metaphor makes explicit a value orientation that Mary
Hesse asserted as a necessary part of metaphor. In Hesse
'
s words, is an “evaluative
interpretation,” i.e., one that takes a “proper stance” toward the phenomenon in
question and thus “implies that metaphor is concerned with action as well as
description” (Hesse
1988
, 14). This is also consistent with Thomas Kuhn
'
s remarks
'
on metaphor and science education.
In his later writings, Kuhn highlights the work of metaphor in the education of
na¨ve science students as a case of changing “
seeing
” into “
seeing as
,” for example,
seeing certain spots in a microscope as microorganisms. Making invisibles
visible
also makes other visibles
invisible
in order to clear the way, so to speak, toward
the newly identified target. Kuhn takes metaphor to be “essentially a higher-level of
the process by which ostention enters into the establishment of reference for natural
kind terms” (Kuhn
1979
, 537). In “Second Thoughts on Paradigms,” he deals with
the related question, “How do scientists attach symbolic expressions to nature?”
Kuhn couches his answer in terms of the activity of “recognizing similarity sets,” or
transforming seeing into
seeing
-
as
. To successfully solve the problems in a science
textbook requires just this ability. “The student discovers a way to see his problem
as like a problem he has already encountered. Once that likeness has been seen,
only manipulative difficulties remain” (Kuhn
1977
, 470) Science education,
according to Kuhn, involves conveying to the student
a body of standard examples
(“exemplars” or paradigms). “Acquiring an arsenal of exemplars, just as much as
learning symbolic generalizations, is integral to the process by which a student
gains access to the cognitive achievements of his disciplinary group” (Kuhn
1977
,
471). These exemplars are often in the form of specific problems and their solutions
which have been raised from the myriad situations encountered in naive experience.
There are several standard metaphors in these statements that might attract the usual
kinds of attention (inquiry as a war that requires an “arsenal”) but I would direct our
attention to a deeper layer: attachment, as in the “attachment of symbolic expres-
sions to nature” (Kuhn
1977
, 467). The process of reference-fixing, or “dubbing,” is
what Kuhn calls a “metaphor-like process,” which he considers more fundamental
and less obvious than the similar process operative in metaphor. “Metaphor plays
an essential role establishing links
between scientific language and the world
.”
(Kuhn
1979
, 539, emphasis added).
