“Education is like…”: Home-schooled teenagers’ metaphors for learning, home schooling and school education

In the late 20th century, an interesting phenomenon appeared on the landscape of western education: parents chose to educate their children at home rather than send them to school. Numerous studies were published on the subject in recent decades. However, most of them examine home schooling from the parents’ perspective. This study is unique as it seeks to understand the attitudes of teenagers towards learning, home schooling, and school education, and uses metaphors to do so. It seeks to utilize the ability of metaphors to assemble authentic, unfiltered experiences by those most affected by the choice in home schooling–the home-schooled children themselves. Fifteen home-schooled children were asked to describe metaphors regarding learning, home schooling, and school. Analysis of the data yielded several meta-categories such as food, nature, movement, sports, and more. Similarities and differences between metaphors described for learning, home schooling, and schooling are discussed.