For everyone The tip of the iceberg
What does a teacher really do? A cynic would say we shape children into useful cogs for the machine. But I’m an optimist, so I like to think we help children find meaning in the world.
This is harder than it sounds, given meaning doesn’t exist objectively, but rather emerges from the semantic network of human ideas, concepts, beliefs and fears that teachers must weave into tapestries of understanding every time they explain something new. And when the threads of student confusion get tangled into Gordian Knots, experienced teachers bring out the sharpened blade of a good metaphor.
Ask any teacher what their favourite High Impact Teaching Strategy is and they’ll send you to sleep with a response fit for LinkedIn. But ask them what their favourite metaphor is and you’ll get a lengthy Reddit post in need of a tl;dr. One philosophy teacher I know frames his entire course using the allegory of car maintenance, while my teacher partner helps her students write close analysis with an extended simile of baking.
One of the most challenging concepts for my students is the way texts can contain both explicit and implicit meaning. It sounds simple enough but scratch the surface and you quickly descend into the realm of structural, ideological, and contextual readings, with a pinch of audience theory thrown in for good measure.
I’ve tried explaining it a thousand times, but recently I came up with a picture that is worth at least 1,500 words, not including a bibliography. So, find a pencil, because we’re about to create an Iceberg of Meaning…
Down here, even the creator might not have realised all the biases, beliefs, and values they froze into ice.
THE ICEBERG OF MEANING
First, draw a wavy line across the top of an A4 page. This represents the waterline of the Ocean of Human Thoughts and Feelings out of which a writer ‘freezes’ their text.
Let’s draw one of these icebergs now, representing any book, film, or TV series you choose. Make sure there is a jagged peak above the waterline and the bulk of the ice reaches the bottom of the page.
Look out, here comes the intended audience! Let’s draw that in as a cruise ship, with lots of passengers pointing at the iceberg. This is where the intended or explicit meaning of the text is found, and there should be enough room above the water to summarise it as a moral lesson or ideological opinion. Write it down.
Now, here comes another boat, much smaller than our Titanic. A private yacht perhaps. While this secondary audience crew can still see the explicit tip, they can also read the implied meanings of the text at the waterline. While still intentional, these require closer scrutiny to decode. Write one of these down too.
If we want to see below the water, though, we’re going to need a different kind of boat. Submarines are perfect. But the ocean is deep, and as we drop into the midnight zone, my designs start to look like Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, with all kinds of weird equipment to scan the ocean floor.
Down here, even the creator might not have realised all the biases, beliefs, and values they froze into ice so their intended ideas would float up for the tourists. We call these the implicit meanings of the text, and don’t worry if they start to look like the titles of peer-reviewed journal articles when you try to summarise them. Luckily, we have more room down here to write them all out.
Metaphors are texts too, containing more meaning than their makers imagined.
The first time I used this iceberg, my students copied the diagram and compared notes about the meanings they found at each depth. But then something surprising happened. As the class discussion shifted to which audience vessel each thought they were on, one student said that at the start of the year they had been on the Titanic, but now they were on the Nautilus. Our classroom was their submarine!
I designed the iceberg to clarify the way texts contain unintentional meaning, yet it was only when my students read more into the analogy that I realised metaphors are texts too, containing more meaning than their makers imagined. Not just a mixed metaphor; a meta metaphor.
So, if you plan to use the Iceberg of Meaning in your own class, I suggest adding a note on submarines. Like our classrooms, they are purpose built for exploration, but even the captain can’t operate all the equipment alone. They need the crew’s help to see in the dark.
