Ask a simile what it thinks of a metaphor, andit will answer, “Me no like.” Which is a bad joke, but does encapsulate howmany of us define a metaphor—as a simile minus the word “like.” The differenceis a degree of emphasis. A simile is like a polite vicar bicycling along acountry lane, while a metaphor is a firebrand preacher remonstrating from asoapbox. Well, not really, but exaggeration is also a way of making learning“stick.”
The bane of theliteral-minded, the blessing of the learner
Analogy lies at the root not only of how welearn but of how we think. Literal-mindedness gets us only so far. “When I seea bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, Icall that bird a duck,” wrote the poet James Whitcomb Riley, memorably (weremember the duck but not James Whitcomb Riley). Still, plain old ducks cansignify other things, such as the fear of loss, as they do for Holden Caulfieldin The Catcher in the Rye, when he asksa cab driver, “You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central ParkSouth? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go,the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?”And like a reluctant learner bamboozled by an eLearning course objective, thecab driver replies, “How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?”
My own experience of using analogy in eLearningis that it’s vital not only so the learner can learn but also so theinstructional designer can think. It can even help an organization adjust itsown messaging once it sees itself reflected back in eLearning’s truthfullydistorting mirror. This is one gift we can offer the client: “to see ourselvesas others see us.” And we do it not with the flattery of advertisers, but withthe honesty that comes from simply thinking something through. A poor eLearningcourse fails in the same way that a poor metaphor does: because someone didn’tthink it through properly. And at this point, you should be screaming, “Give usan example!”
I’ll give you two.
For instance
In the first, confronted with a giant slab oftext on the procedures involved in seeking to resolve staff relationsdifficulties, I obeyed my knee-jerk ID reaction to devise some kind ofclick-and-reveal activity—one that would hide as much of the text as possible, atleast initially, so that the page lookedgood. But even with this ruse in mind, I did start thinking—though perhaps more visually than conceptually. What hasdifferent stages or compartments, has an element of risk to it, but eventuallyhas a good outcome? My answer to my own riddle: a beehive. The different stagesof the procedure could be represented by five honeycomb frames; the element ofrisk or difficulty (staff relations can worsen as well as improve) was thethreat of being stung; and the good outcome—the resolution of the difficulty—wasthe honey. I had my metaphor, and the giant slab dissolved into a gloopy amber.
But something wasn’t right. I tried this ideaout on two of my colleagues, and as I attempted to explain it, my confusiongrew. Is the process of making honey really like the process of resolvingdifficulties? In this analogy, who is the beekeeper? Is there a queen bee? Howcould identical-looking frames represent the differences between the variousstages of resolution? So I scrapped the idea (though I retain the right to useit in a different context; the first rule of ID is, nothing gets wasted) andwent with the brilliant suggestion that staff relations difficulties are likeknots that have to be unraveled. This took me back to childhood, to mybrother’s magic set and his rope tricks—no matter how complex-looking the knot,he could always pull it straight. So, as resolution fails to be achieved andthe procedure moves to its next stage, the rope becomes more and more knotted.A simple click-and-reveal, but with a twist.
Another example. I was writing a storyboard fora client regarding organizational culture change. My source material spoke of“pains and gains”—the pains that the client’s customers experienced and thegains that its products would bring. But how to visualize “pains”? Surely notwith instruments of torture! My unease at a visual level extended to the verbalrealm: After all, the phrase “pains and gains” evokes the ’80s exercise motto “Nopain, no gain,” in which pain is a positive. But there was no positiveassociation with these pains. I brainstormed a possible interaction with acolleague, and we came up with the idea of representing gains in terms ofgaining height, which allowed us to substitute “drags” for “pains.” Abseiling(rappelling)came to mind at first, and then paragliding, which seemed visually moreappealing. Checking the suitability of paragliding as a metaphor, I knew wewere on to something: Air is both a drag on paragliders and the thing thatlifts them up, so substitute “culture” for “air,” and we were on our way. Iexplained the metaphor rather tortuously in this sentence (simplified in laterdrafts): “Just as paragliders need the air to rise faster than they sink, socompanies can find their performance dipping if their culture languishes,uninvigorated.”
There is always a risk when you take a client’ssource material and adapt it by using analogy. Some clients will rejectmetaphors that don’t relate, literally, to their line of business. Fortunately,in this case the client was more than receptive in the course review, writing,“Have discussed with the team and really love the metaphor of reducing drag togain height. In fact, it’s so good we are changing our terminology for thevalue proposition for all the other products we have.” Which is the kind ofcomment that is like manna from heaven to an ID.
Putting it another way
Those of you who prefer lists and rules torambling would do well to read Sister Misty’s blog at eLearning Brothers, in which the benefitsof using analogies in eLearning are summed up as follows:
- Analogiesspeed up comprehension and reduce learner frustration
- Analogiesprovide visualization that boosts retention
- Analogiescan easily become interactions
- Analogiescan change perception
- Analogiescan provide role reversal that produces empathy
There are a few cautions listed in the article:
- Youranalogy must make sense
- Youranalogy should fit within a context
- Youranalogy should be easy to understand
- Usesparingly
I could add: “Don’t get so caught up indevising a beautiful analogy that you lose sight of the information you aretrying to convey.” In truth, though, this is less a danger than its opposite:dreary, featureless learning that no one remembers.
The paragliding metaphor somewhat breaks the “easy-to-understand”rule of using something familiar to explain the unfamiliar. But you don’t needto be a paraglider to grasp the concept—anyone who’s been swimming understandsthat the medium you move through can both keep you afloat and drag you down.And since the organizational change being described is about taking you fromthe familiar existing culture of an organization into a new, not-yet-familiarculture, the comparison seemed apt.
For a metaphor to work, not every aspect has tobe analogous. You could overthink anything and find as many differences assimilarities (or more). Give a metaphor enough rope, and it will tie you inknots. But a good metaphor will feelright as well as satisfy the intellect.
Understanding Blackstar
I wrote in an earlier blog how my interest in language grew alongside mylove of music. Well, one of the master songwriters and performers who influencedme back then has recently died. David Bowie was a master of metaphor—as well asso much else. As Neil McCormick pointed out in a tribute in the Telegraph,“The lost Starman is a metaphor Bowie played with throughout [his] career.”When the reviews of Bowie’s final album, Blackstar,appeared, reviewers pondered what it was that seemed so threateningly ominousto Bowie; one speculated that it was the rise of Islamic State—an overtpolitical reference that struck me as uncharacteristic of this artist. Ofcourse, when we all discovered that Bowie had known for over a year that he wasgoing to die, then the metaphor of the black star made perfect sense. But thatis part of the richness of analogy: It allows for subjective associations andinterpretations. Learners will respond to this richness—as long as you don’tover-egg the pudding. Metaphor’s very best friend is plain statement.
In his early days, Bowie was something of adisciple of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who once wrote: “Everyconcept is generated by equating unequal things.” Just think about that. Theuse of analogy isn’t about adorning the learning: It is learning, itself.
