Review Essay

IRIS M. YOB

THINKING CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH METAPHORS

A review of Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon, 2000, Transforming critical thinking: Thinking constructively, New
York: Teachers College Press.

This reflection on Barbara Thayer-Bacon’s new book, Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking
Constructively, 1 borrows from her title to explore the role of metaphor in constructive thinking in
general and in this work in particular. It might well be argued that one of the significant contributions of
Thayer-Bacon’s book is the metaphor she has adopted and put to work throughout, the figure of the
quilting bee. In the Foreword, Jane Roland Martin suggests as much when she writes that the book’s
guiding metaphor is one of its strengths both for the rich possibilities it suggests about the nature of
constructive thinking and for the way the book is itself a “veritable quilt,” the product of many separate
strands of thought pieced together into a “compelling pattern.” This coming together of medium and
message warrants our attention. Among the many working descriptions of how metaphors work, one of
the most useful remains Nelson Goodman’s.2 He talks about the “transfer of schema”, where “schema”
is understood to be a network or “family” of labels. When a metaphor is employed, he explains, the
schema is “transported” from its customary realm to a new realm. Here the elements and structures of
the schema organize the “alien realm” in a way that “ is guided by their habitual use in the home realm.”
The labels and the relationships they describe, both literally and figuratively, are “imposed upon [this]
most unlikely and uncongenial realm,” inviting exploration of the new realm in terms of the entities,
structures, and relationships of the realm from which they are borrowed.3 1 Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon
(2000), Transforming critical thinking: Thinking constructively. New York: Teachers College Press. 2 For a
fuller interpretation and critique of Goodman’s work see Iris M. Yob (1992), “Religious metaphor and
scientific model: Grounds for comparison,” Religious Studies, 28, 475–485. 3 Nelson Goodman (1976),
Languages of Art, pp. 71–74. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Studies in Philosophy and Education
22: 127–138, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 128 IRIS M. YOB
This represents an advance in the understanding of metaphor over that offered by Max Black. Black
proposes that a metaphor acts as a lens, a screen, or a filter, through which the new realm is viewed.
Commonplace assertions about the originating realm are applied to the new realm. So, if one were to
say, This room is a pigstry, some features of the room would be seen through this lens, such as
messiness, stuff thrown about the floor, disorder, food possibly tossed in among the mess, and maybe a
nasty smell about the room. What remain as questions in this description of metaphors is how do some
assertions from the original realm get “filtered” out (for example, a pigsty is inhabited by creatures with
four legs, it is designed to received excrement, and there is not the intention of making it a place where
many objects are neatly arranged), and how exactly do meaning changes occur in the assertions that do
apply so that what is said about pigsties is understood to fit the room.4 Obviously context must be
considered to determine the predicates to be transferred to avoid a selection that is either too narrow
or too broad, but this explanation still does not fully satisfy because it in turn raises the question of how
context actually does the filtering. Black speaks of metaphor as “pouring new content into old bottles,”5
thereby suggesting that the new realm simply submits to the organization of the old realm. Goodman,
on the other hand, explains metaphors not only as “a whole apparatus of organization [taking] over new
territory,” but also as “a happy and revitalizing, even if bigamous, second marriage,”6 thereby making it
possible to conceive of a certain amount of give and take between the old organization and the new
realm. Metaphor “moonlights,” that is, it takes its sorting skills and puts them to work at another job. Its
usefulness in the new job depends on how effective it is in sorting this new realm, what insights it
provides, and what new meanings it can produce.7 What is at the same time both illuminating and
frustrating in most descriptions of how metaphors work is that they themselves depend so heavily on
metaphorical talk. To speak of “lenses,” “old wine in new bottles,” “moonlighting,” “bigamous second
marriages,” and the “transporting of schemata” from one “realm” to another where they rule the “alien
territory” is to explain the phenomenon in non-literal terms. In 4 Israel Scheffler raises this latter
question in Beyond the Letter: A Philosophical Inquiry into Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Metaphor in
Language (1979), pp. 107–130. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 5 Max Black (1962), Models and
Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy, p. 239. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 6 Goodman,
Languages of Art, p. 73. 7 Goodman (1984), Of Minds and Other Matters, pp. 71–77. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press. REVIEW ESSAY 129 effect, the descriptions themselves become exemplars of how
metaphors work. In the Thayer-Bacon account, the quilting bee metaphor acts as Goodman suggests
effective metaphors do: it takes the organization, structures, entities, and forces of a literal quilting bee
and applies them to the realm of learning and thinking. In this regard, the metaphor fits the message for
the work itself demonstrates how a knower can take an array of contributions (much like the pieces of
fabric that quilters would assemble) and stitch together a whole account of the nature of knowledge
and the making of knowledge. The epistemological pieces on which Thayer-Bacon draws most heavily
are from identifiable currents of thought: constructivism, critical thinking, and the collection of feminist,
womanist and Third World thought, with recourse to postmodernism. So, one finds discussions about
the contributions to constructivism by thinkers from Aristotle to Peirce, James, Dewey, and other recent
proponents, critical thinkers from Plato to Wittgenstein, Russell, Popper, Quine, and their more recent
commentators, and feminist/womanist/Third World thinkers such as Mary Belenkly and her co-authors,
Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, Jane Roland Martin, Jean Grimshaw, Audre Lourde, bell
hooks, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldúa, and many others. The original contribution of the book lies in the
reviewing, critiquing, and bringing together of these various offerings and making a whole piece out of
them-and this Thayer-Bacon does by calling on the power of the quilting bee metaphor. Several
elements in the schema that the image of a quilting bee brings to the discussion are skillfully explicated
in the book. The quilt that emerges out of the combined activity of quilters is the accumulated and
shared knowledge of a group of thinkers with shared experiences. One of the first notions that comes to
mind is that quilting bees are places of action. “To quilt” is an active verb; by this account, “to know” is
also an active verb. As Thayer-Bacon explains, knowledge is not pre-existent as Plato assumed, but is
either the goal or by-product of people making sense out of experience. Knowledge is not absorbed or
uncovered, but created and constructed. At the same time, the metaphor also carries the notion that
the making of knowledge is as much a collective activity as is a quilting bee. Thayer-Bacon highlights a
number of important implications of this idea: the significance of the social nature of knowers/learners
and of the role of consequences on the nature of coming to know, so that what is made evident is “the
interactive connection between social beings, ideas, and consequences”8 in the development of
knowledge. 8 Thayer-Bacon, 2. 130 IRIS M. YOB If knowing is both an active and a social enterprise, then
it follows that knowers are both embodied, that is they come to know through their bodies and minds,
and embedded, that is they are contextualized beings.9 These form important perspectives on how
knowledge is constructed. Being “embodied”, as quilters are embodied, means that the mind or reason
is not the sole maker of knowledge. Rather, there are forms of practical knowledge (which warrants little
attention in the book) and learning that comes from doing (which is illustrated), but more importantly
the more bodilybased capacities of the emotions and intuitions, and the hands-on projects of knowers,
are brought into play alongside reason and critical thinking in the construction of knowledge. Being
“embedded” is to be, like a quilter at a quilting bee, part of a social context, in which certain habits,
customs, mores, rituals, histories, and traditions undergird the processes of knowledge construction
within particular social groupings, helping to determine what is known and how it is known. In effect,
Thayer-Bacon contributes to the undermining of the myths of objectivity, detached reason, and totally
independent knowledge and makes room in her epistemology for the role of play, fantasy, and feelings,
and gives communication and cooperation augmented parts to play. Another striking feature of the
quilting bee metaphor is its feminine tone. Quilting is typically (maybe stereotypically) a woman’s past-
time or vocation. Children are usually present, food is served, and while hands are busy stitching and
cutting, woman-lore is shared and women’s interests are talked about. This very woman-centered
metaphor becomes an appropriate carrier of the discussion and integration of a variety of feminist,
womanist, and Third World thinking for it admits and values ways of knowing that have been
traditionally discounted, even scorned, and/or systematically undisclosed: intuition, feelings,
subjectivity, aesthetic evaluations, and relational ethics. The radicalness of the quilting bee metaphor
becomes particularly evident when Thayer-Bacon puts it alongside a symbol of the alternative and
prevailing viewpoint, Rodin’s sculpture, The Thinker. Here is a white male, solitary, detached, passive,
lost in reasoning alone, representing the ideal knower, scholar, or “man of letters”. When these contrary
grounding metaphors are applied to classroom approaches, very different scenarios emerge. The
Thinker predisposes one to imagine a classroom of quiet order, silent work, minds focused on
abstractions, pupils sitting at desks with open books. The quilting bee conjures up a classroom full of
talk, movement, manipulatives, experimentation, group projects, maybe 9 “Emodied” and “embedded”
are terms adopted from the work of S. Benhabib. See Thayer-Bacon, p. 2. REVIEW ESSAY 131 some
laughing, certainly some interaction with learning materials and each other-just the kind of classroom
Thayer-Bacon recalls from her own experience as a Montessori teacher. Once it is revealed that the
quilters represent learners (and the teacher is included in this category), that the quilts represent the
knowledge that is constructed in this social setting, and that the pieces of fabric are the basic ideas
which need to be gathered, arranged in patterns and stitched in, various other elements in the setting
are identified. Thayer-Bacon tells us that the tools quilters use – the rulers, scissors, and straight pins
that order the material and hold the pieces together until they are sewn-collectively represent reason.
Clearly, she does not discount the role reason plays, but she is not prepared to surrender the whole
endeavor of knowing to it alone. The tools of reason and critical thinking “help us make choices,” she
argues, on the way to creating a finished product.10 The “needle and thread that [glide] through the
pieces of material and [tie] them together,” she adds, represent intuition which “helps us move through
our thoughts and feelings and make sense of our experiences.” These tools also help learners move
between the pieces of material and understand how they relate to each other, as well as help us move
“between the different layers of the quilt; the top layer, the inside batting, and the backing.” In sum,
“intuition’s unique function is to help us shape ideas together.”11 The patterns and design for the quilt,
she continues, represent the imagination in part because the imagination “helps us bring parts that
seem to be severed together, as it helps us see patterns where there appear to be none.”12 In doing so,
she claims a place for the arts and aesthetic sensitivity in the construction of knowledge, although she
does not fully explicate their role. The material’s colors and textures stand for the emotions “for they
best represent the kind of energy and vibrancy that emotions bring to our inquiring. Emotions stir us and
move us to act, they are expressions of doubt and concern, love, hate, fear, and surprise.”13 It would be
a category mistake to say at this point that the figure of the quilting bee ceases to be a metaphor and
has become instead an analogy of how knowledge is constructed. Metaphor is not a figure of speech, or
a trope among tropes. A figure is not either a simile, a parable, a model, an analogy, or a metaphor. The
old saw that has been passed onto generations of school children, “A simile says something is like
something else and metaphors say something is something else,” has circumscribed 10 Ibid., pp. 148–
149. 11 Ibid., p. 152. 12 Ibid., p. 155. 13 Ibid., p. 157. 132 IRIS M. YOB and diluted our collective
understanding of metaphor as it operates in the construction of thought. Similes, parables, analogies,
and models can all be more or less metaphorical. Whenever a linguistic, or for that matter visual,
auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, somatic, or olfactory symbol provides a schema for transfer to a new
domain, there is metaphor for metaphor is a function not a figure. Although the quilting bee may be an
analogy, Thayer-Bacon is quite right is also claiming that here it also functions as a metaphor. That being
said, it remains to assess how effective the quilting bee metaphor is in helping us understand the
processes of thinking and learning that Thayer-Bacon is promoting. As already indicated, it forcefully
captures the essentials of her epistemology: knowledge is actively constructed by social beings and the
process incorporates both reason and critical thinking as well as intuition, imagination, and the
emotions. It is difficult to imagine a more effective metaphor than the quilting bee for this task. So, what
further questions might be raised about it? One might ask about its originality. Quilting and weaving
have become popular motifs in feminist and other movements representing alternatives to dominant
ways of thinking. These quilting and weaving motifs have been helpful in capturing both variety and
inclusiveness for they suggest the bringing together in harmonious and creative ways the many
perspectives found in a multicultural, gendered, and economically, ethnically, familially, educationally
and otherwise diverse population that now comprises our communities and schools. All threads or
pieces of fabric have a place and value and can become part of, or contribute to, a larger whole.
Incidentally, there is a concurrent rise in interest in and value of literal weaving and quilting as an art, as
though the symbol and the reality are revitalizing each other. While quilting may not be an original
figure, Thayer-Bacon’s application of it may be the most consistent and fully explicated account of what
it might mean in terms of educational thought and practice. There is also a question about the
metaphor’s appeal. Is the typical educator going to be attracted by the metaphor and consequently the
message? Some metaphors are too out of step with the times to take hold in the collective imagination.
While quilting is an activity recalled from the past and the quilting bee evokes nostalgia for bygone
idylls, it can also be a very timely metaphor. It has proven its worth in its ability to deal with issues of
diversity, as already suggested. It also evokes a sense of community as an antidote to contemporary
feelings of isolation, of using natural raw materials as an antidote to the plastic world westerners have
created for themselves, of manufacturing something with one’s own REVIEW ESSAY 133 hands as an
antidote to overarching consumerism, and of the satisfaction of making something beautiful as an
antidote to instrumental materialism. If a metaphor can speak to the needs of the time in the ways this
one can, it has a better chance of surviving and doing its work. Timeliness is not the only consideration,
however, for metaphors are “thought-leaders” taking us into new territory and providing us with the
tools to order and comprehend it. So a metaphor may at first be jarring, shocking us into new ways of
thinking and being. A metaphor may also be jarring because it carries with it emotional and aesthetic
overtones and gloss upon gloss of personal experiences, that color it and subsequently what it
represents. For instance, the word “father” as a metaphor for God has been longstanding for it has
spoken to believers of care, protection, wisdom, guidance, and love. For others, however, whose
experience with their birth fathers has been negative or damaging, God the Father has suggested abuse,
neglect, displeasure, fear, or rejection and for them, other metaphors have been more acceptable:
mother-God, servant-God, and Friend have been suggested and theologically defended. So while
quilting may surprise us into new and profitable ways of thinking about the educational process, are
there negative overtones for too many that the metaphor and its message will not capture our collective
imaginations? One cannot answer this question a priori; only time will tell. It is possible to predict,
however, that some men will find it too womanly to warrant their attention. But then, that means it is
fulfilling part of its purpose: to confront the reader with neglected or novel ways of thinking about the
subject of knowing where male perspectives have ruled solo for a long time. Similarly, some women may
be uncomfortable with the metaphor because it is so stereotypically feminine or because it represents a
feminine interest for some but not for all women. Jane Roland Martin may very well identify with this
for she declares in the Foreword, “Let me say here and now that I am not a quilter and have never
wanted to be one.”14 For some of us these are comforting words for we literally suffered through
sewing classes at school and have vowed off the enterprise ever since. Notwithstanding this kind of
discomfort, the metaphor can still be explored for the ideas it provokes, in the knowledge that no single
metaphor will appeal to everybody at all times. However, herein lies a problem with all metaphors.
Since in a sense metaphors are an artifice, a tool, for opening up possible conceptual territories for
exploration, their connections and dynamics in constructing knowledge have inherent limitations.
Primarily, a metaphor is not the thing being referred to but a symbol of it. If it were the same as the
thing it was 14 Ibid., p. x. 134 IRIS M. YOB referring to it would not be needed. Therefore, it is other than
and in some respects less than what it refers to, even when referring powerfully and provocatively. One
way to compensate for this deficiency in representation is to employ a variety of metaphors which when
taken together provide numerous perspectives and constructions so that a more comprehensive
understanding of the subject can emerge. Thayer-Bacon has chosen to explicate one metaphor, and so it
suffers the limitations of a single image with its solitary set of possibilities, although this choice has
allowed her to explore that image in depth. As she is the first to admit, it may not be the most helpful
metaphor for everyone (community picnics, barn raising, choral groups, and dances might suit others
better she suggests).15 Nor would she consider this to be the infallible and final word on the matter of
the knowing process16 which raises the prospect theoretically at least that other elements of social
constructivism and ways other than social constructivism may arise and be captured by completely
different metaphors. This is something to keep in mind when reading this and other metaphor driven
accounts, and indeed, any other kind of account of the covert world of the mind and knowing. Metaphor
is employed when one wants to explore and understand something esoteric, abstract, novel, or highly
speculative. As a general rule, the more abstract or speculative it is, the greater the variety of metaphors
needed to grapple with it. Hence there are numerous metaphors for accessing the concept of God, for
instance: King, Shepherd, Lord, Judge, Mother, Lion, Lamb, Rock, Lover, Housekeeper, and so on, each
one providing different information and calling for different responses. Again, in making it possible to
talk about something new, metaphor is a useful tool. This was particularly evident in the recent eruption
of personal computers. We speak of them having “languages,” passing “viruses,” storing information in
“folders” and “files,” having “memory” which is accessed sometimes by “menus,” providing “tools,” built
with “ports” where other appliances may “dock”, and employing “hardware” and “software,” for
instance. Knowing and how human beings come to know (education) are also highly speculative notions
with succeeding generations of thinkers promoting novel theories about how it should be conducted. No
wonder then that metaphor is used in talking about teaching and learning, even though each new figure
is both deficient in that it cannot reveal all, while at the same time possibly very revealing of some novel
aspects. What we have here in this metaphor then is one among many 15 Ibid., p. 13. 16 See her
discussions on fallibilism, ibid., pp. 42–49, 68–69, 90–93, 140. REVIEW ESSAY 135 possible accounts of
social constructivism which is itself one among many approaches to describing how human beings come
to know. This may explain some of the fallibilism in any account of the nature of knowledge that Thayer-
Bacon recognizes. It also suggests that some ways of coming to know are downplayed or omitted in the
account. There is, for instance, more quilting than what one might see at a quilting bee (there are
thinkers who prefer to think more alone than collectively, and from this distance may very well overturn
a current paradigm), and people who are making fabric and materials for quilters to use (possibly data
collectors of various kinds and people who happen to ask the right questions for others to answer), and
people who sell quilts for a living (for instance, those who pass on collective knowledge in predesigned
packages). Of course, Thayer-Bacon may very well reply that such educational endeavors are not devoid
of social and constructivist features, for individual knowers are always socially contextualized and must
make meaning out of what they do. But in the alternative instances suggested here, the social
construction of knowledge is not so much the primary focus as it is the backdrop to other ventures with
knowledge. Another different set of questions may arise over the process of transfer of schema in this
instance. Has the application of the quilting bee metaphor to education and knowing been accurate,
consistent, and logical in the sense that once the process of transfer has begun it has a certain sense of
inevitability about it? In general, the sense of community and meaning building has had the ring of
certainty under the guidance of the metaphor. It is only when some of the smaller details are
discussedrulers, straight pins, thread, needles, scissors, patterns, designs, colors, and textures (and this
occupies only a small part of the total book17) that the transfer appears somewhat forced. It might
strike some readers, for instance, that critical thinking, reasoning, imagination, and intuition are all tools
in making knowledge, each indispensable although performing different tasks. Thayer-Bacon, on the
other hand, gives reason and critical thinking the role of tools, while intuition is the thread, imagination
is the pattern, and emotions are the colors and textures. Giving reason the role of measuring the pieces
and imagination the role of shaping the whole is argued, but the very opposite roles for reason and
imagination could also be argued just as persuasively. Emotions give color and texture, according to this
account, but the imagination might very well do the same. Intuition is said to hold the pieces together,
but critical thinking also has a part to play in this as well. Here, she may have pushed the analogy
beyond what is helpful. 17 Ibid., pp. 148–159. 136 IRIS M. YOB By interpreting the details in this way,
Thayer-Bacon has certainly pointed up that each of these thinking capacities has a place, but their roles
are pictured so differently that their distinctiveness and differentiation appear to be virtually
insurmountable. A ruler and the thread, a texture and a straight pin are what they are and do not qualify
each other. Consequently, the merging of the different categories, such as one would find in notions
such as “intuitive reasoning,” “critical imagination,” “emotional intuition,” “reasoning imagination,” and
“cognitive emotions,”18 are not easily conceived in this account even though they can be
conceptualized outside of the metaphor. At an ironic level, the image that emerges from naming the
parts or elements of the quilting bee and giving their correspondences or equivalencies runs counter to
the wholistic account of knowing Thayer-Bacon is proposing. In the account she lays out, all the
capacities of the human mind, body, and imagination are not kept apart from each other but are to be
brought mutually, simultaneously, and interactively to bear on the tasks of learning and knowing.
Another irony emerges. Pressing the interpretation and application of the metaphor throughout the
book has left little to the imagination of the reader, and this is an important consideration in an account
that identifies imagination as a significant player in making meaning, Unpacking the literal
representations of a metaphor, explaining the parts, and connecting them, is always somewhat
idiosyncratic and not at all exhaustive. In a recent discussion of what metaphors mean, Donald Davidson
makes the case that what metaphors make us notice is not finite in scope nor propositional in nature.
Rather, “there is no limit to what a metaphor calls to our attention, and much of what we are caused to
notice is not propositional in character ... . Seeing as is not seeing that.”19 Fundamentally, a metaphor is
provocative and suggestive and its provocativeness and suggestiveness is not entirely tamed by a series
of propositions made by a single individual. Paul Griffiths, picking up on Davidson’s analysis, goes as far
as to say, “Metaphor is a device that, like such things as dreams, reveries, and soulful gazes into the eyes
of the beloved, provides intimations and provokes a shift of the gaze, a deeper noticing.” Unfortunately,
he overstates the case 18 In regard to this latter R. S. Peters spoke of “rational passions” in Moral
development and moral education (1981), p. 143. London: George Allen and Unwin; Israel Scheffer of
“cognitive emotions” in “In praise of the cognitive emotions” (1997), Teacher’s College Record 79(2):
171–186; and I of “emotional cognitions” in “The cognitive emotions and emotional cognitions”, Reason
and education: Essays in honor of Israel Scheffler, pp. 43– 57, ed. Harvey Siegel. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers. 19 Donald Davidson (1984), “What metaphors mean,” p. 263. idem: Inquiries into
truth and interpretation. Oxford University Press. REVIEW ESSAY 137 when he continues, “It cannot be
paraphrased.”20 It may be better to say that all a writer can hope to do in explicating a metaphor is
describe what it makes he or she notice. This is likely to include some propositions, and some feelings,
intuitions, images, and so on. In the end, however, room should be left for the reader’s imagination.
Looked at another way, each replacement of the suggestiveness of a metaphor with a literal proposition
tends to diminish the metaphoricalness of the metaphor, or reduce its suggestive and provocative
power in the particular context in which it is being used. The metaphorical and the literal are not a
simple dyad but two poles connected by a continuum. Something can be more or less metaphorical,
more or less literal. Metaphors can die, freeze, or stagnate with use. They can eventually become literal,
as “foot” of the mountain, “arm” of the chair, and “virus” in a computer have become literal terms with
prescribed dictionary definitions. The challenge for the educational writer whose epistemology is
inspired by a metaphor lies then in determining the extent to which the metaphor will be protected
from being literalized to death. It should be said, however, that Thayer-Bacon’s treatment of the quilting
bee metaphor has its precedents. One thinks of John Amos Comenius’ employment of the metaphor of
light. Writing as an enlightenment figure, his grounding metaphor was most consistently and fully
captured in his Via Lucis [The Way of Light], written in 1668. He unpacks the figure throughout: he
speaks of knowledge lighting the path, learners being enlightened and advancing from darkness into
light, the word of truth shining on the learner, the Age of Light, language being “the carrier of Light,” the
advancement of knowledge as the “kindling [of] smoking embers into light and heat”, “the foul shadows
of ignorance,” and so on. He reduces light to its elements for interpretation and provides educators with
a reading for virtually every then-known quality of light including refraction, luminosity through
opaqueness and transparency, and so on. Thayer-Bacon has done a similar thing with the quilting bee
but one might not expect her to do so. She does not accept what Comenius took for granted: Truth,
complete, absolute and universal, is already known or would soon be, so that the challenge for
educators is simply to disseminate it as quickly and widely as possible. He saw his duty to be to spell out
the verities and show how they could be shared. The task Thayer-Bacon set herself, in contrast, has
been to explicate the much more qualified view, the social construction of truths, embedded, embodied
and, therefore, tentative and what the epistemological assumptions of this view might mean in the 20
Paul Griffiths (2000), “Seeking Egyptian gold: A fundamental metaphor for the Christian intellectual life
in a religiously diverse age,” Cresset, 7. 138 IRIS M. YOB professional practice of education. In this
regard, the message and the means do not coincide so well. One wonders what the impact of social
constructivist assumptions might be on how metaphors like the quilting bee are employed. What would
be the outcome of letting the reader do more of his or her own construction with the metaphor she
brings to the conversation? What would be the result of employing the figure less explicitly and more
implicitly? The closer the details of the metaphor Thayer-Bacon analyzes in terms of learning and
knowing, the closer her metaphorical analogy approaches literal analogy. In the end, she has chosen to
use the metaphor as a tool with prescribed meanings, rather than as a fanciful and whimsical
provocateur. This is legitimate choice, of course, and another reviewer may very well have faulted her
work if she had not explicated the metaphor in detail. One unintended consequence of spelling things
out so thoroughly, however, may be the curtailment of the “quilting bee” figure in the active
imagination of educators. Giving a thorough explication or leaving room for the imagination of the
reader present an inevitable dilemma for a social constructivist thinker using metaphor. Collins Living
Learning Center Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 USA E-mail: iyob@indiana.edu