Metaphors of History Teachers Candidates in Turkey on Teaching Profession

The study aims to determine the reason for choosing the teaching profession identifying how history teacher candidates perceive the concepts of "teacher" and "teaching". The study was conducted with 115 history teachers enrolled in an initial teacher training programme in a university located in Turkey’s Central Anatolia Region in the 2014-2015 academic year. To investigate the candidate teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession, the research participants filled in blank space from a questionnaire administered by the researchers. The collected data was analysed using the content analysis method and this gave rise to specific metaphors with associated categories. Thus, 19 metaphors and 6 categories for the teacher concept; 26 metaphors and 7 categories for teaching; 15 reasons and 3 categories for the reasons of choosing the teaching profession emerged. Research findings illustrate that the candidate history teachers’ perception of the teaching profession are positive. However, the participants used predominantly negative metaphors, in describing the difficulties history teacher candidates encounted regarding “teaching”. In relation to teaching profession choices, the most occurring reason was the love for the profession; other factors affecting the candidates’ preference were the reasons articulated in the categories of “need” and “responsibility”.


Introduction
Teachers play an important role in the training of the society's future and raising individuals meeting today's requirements (Kaya, Bahceci and Kaya, 2016;Harden and Crosby, 2009;Ada, 1990).Effective functioning of the education system is required for the maintenance and order of the society.The education of the individual begins at the family and continues at school; this process ends with death.Therefore, the education is defined as a process (Ayas, 2013) starting with birth and continuing till death.The education in the family is parents' responsibility while the responsibility in the school is of teachers.In that sense, teacher becomes one of the basic elements of the education system and one of the main factors affecting the future of the society.
When the teacher is considered as the person responsible for teaching the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values; it would not be wrong to expect his/her achievements in these subjects to teach.So, a teacher should be good at learning.at least his/her student as much as.In addition to that, the teacher is a role model for students; so, many of his/her characteristics can have positive or negative effects on students.The teaching profession requires the combination of many characteristics, primarily patience, devotion, and desire; commitment to the profession, love, and desire can be seen as the primary features.
The choice of profession is the key milestones in human life.It is an investment in the future of both oneself and one's country to orientation to a favorite profession in accordance with one's characteristics.The profession chosen by consciousness and love will be the key to success.
Our perspective on the profession shapes our values, attitudes, perceptions and beliefs about our profession.Since the years of studenthood, the attitudes and understanding of the candidate teachers about the teaching profession have had considerable influence and traces on how they will be teachers in the future.For this reason, metaphors are a powerful tool in understanding and explaining the perceptions of candidate teachers about the teaching profession.
The metaphors are defined as the expression of experiences in terms of making of the individuals' personal experiences (Miller, 1987).Concepts guide our social relations by leading our thoughts and actions.Assuming that the conceptual system is a largely metaphorical system, it is not wrong to say that our way of thinking and our actions are related to these metaphors.According to Lakoff and Johnson (2005) metaphors are as a figure of thought.Metaphors use concrete examples while explaining abstract concepts.According to Morgan (1998), "metaphor is a way of thinking and a way of seeing that provides us to comprehend the world".According to Boostrom (1998), "the use of a metaphor for teaching should not be construed as necessarily realizing the teaching as the metaphor predicted but arguing about teaching"."If a picture is worth 1000 words, a metaphor is 1000 pictures; because a picture presents only a static image while a metaphor presents a mental framework to think about a phenomenon (Shuell, 1990).According to Oxford et al. (1998), the concept expressed by the metaphor is to explain a phenomenon or an event by comparing another phenomenon or event.In short, metaphor emerges as mental models (Saban, 2008) that allows people to see a certain phenomenon in another.
Metaphors have a formative impact on people's self-expression as much as on the way of thinking, language, and science (Morgan, 1980) and as researchers, we can use metaphors to understand how employees perceive their work team and teachers perceive their students.
Many teacher candidates make observations in the course of "teaching practice".Because of all these experiences, they have developed images, ideals, and models of what the teaching profession is.When these students become teachers, they start to reconstruct their knowledge based on their new experiences as teachers from their own perspectives.New teachers often act on generalized beliefs, images or metaphors that affect their teaching negatively.Two such known metaphors are "teacher like a friend" and "teacher as strict authority".Many teachers have to learn that these approaches do not work in consequence of the negative experiences (Celikten, 2006).
Our perspective on the profession shapes our attitudes, perceptions and beliefs about our profession.Determining perceptions of teacher candidates about the concept of "teacher" and "teaching" may be beneficial both to teacher qualifications and to the development of teacher education.For this reason, it is thought that the study will contribute to the field.

Research Goal
In this study, it was aimed to metaphorically analyze the beliefs of the history teacher candidates about the teaching profession, who have initial teacher training, and thus the following secondary objectives were questioned.
1-What are the metaphors of the history teacher candidates regarding the concept of "teacher"?2-Under which conceptual categories can the metaphors related to the concept of "teacher" be grouped in terms of their common attributes?3-What are the metaphors of the history teacher candidates regarding the "teaching" concept?4-Under which conceptual categories can the metaphors related to the "teaching" concept be grouped in terms of their common attributes?5-What are the reasons for becoming a teacher for the prospective history teachers?
Examining the beliefs of the candidate teachers relate to these questions will enable them to demonstrate their attitudes towards this profession and to make necessary readjustments by early intervention in negative perceptions.

Research Model
Fenomenography was used as qualitative research methods in the research.In this method, perceptions and events have been tried to be presented realistically and holistically (Yildirim and Simsek, 2006) in their natural environment.The collected data were evaluated by the content analysis method.Content analysis is defined as the summarization of the basic content of the verbal and written information obtained and the messages it contains (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2007).

Sample and Data Collection
The research was conducted in a university located in the Central Anatolia Region in the 2014-2015 academic year.The sample includes 115 history teacher candidates having initial teacher training in the Faculty of Arts.The descriptive data for the research group are presented in Table 1.

Data Collection Tool
In order to determine the prospective history teachers' understanding of teacher and teaching profession, they were supposed to fill in the blanks in the sentences, "Teacher is like...Because ...", "Teaching is a profession which is ....Because ..." In this way, it is aimed that the participants establish a link between the metaphor and the resource and justify the situation (Saban, 2009).The concept of "because" has been included so that participants in the study can provide a logical basis for metaphors.Also, the history teacher candidates were asked the reasons for choosing the teaching profession.During the application phase of the questionnaire, necessary explanations were made about the questionnaire and the research purpose was explained to the students.The application study was limited to 30 minutes for each student, and the study's data collection took 3 (three) months

Analyzing of Data
Content analysis method was used for the analysis of qualitative data.The main objective of this method is to attain the concepts and relationships that can explain the collected data.Basically, what researchers do in the content analysis is to first gather similar data around certain concepts and themes and to comment on them by organizing them in an easily comprehensible way so that the reader can understand (Yildirim and Simsek, 2006).The analysis and interpretation of the answers given by the candidate teachers participating in the study were carried out in five stages (Yildirim and Simsek, 2006;Saban, 2009) and analyzed by 2 experts of educational sciences.These are; naming, classification, category development, validity and reliability, and computerizing the data.

1-Naming:
The metaphors of candidate teachers are listed in alphabetical order.It was examined whether the candidates expressed the metaphors explicitly.The expressed metaphors were coded.

2-Classification:
The metaphors expressed by the candidate teachers were fragmented by reviewing at this stage and were temporarily grouped in terms of similar characteristics.In grouping, each metaphor is analyzed by taking into account its subject, its source and the relationship between the subject and the source.At this stage, 5 forms of 5 candidate teachers with unrelated and unadulterated metaphors were excluded from the research, and the study was continued with the answers of 110 candidate teachers.

3-Category Development:
At this stage, current metaphors expressed by candidate teachers are listed again alphabetically.The categories to which each metaphor is associated are identified.

4-Validity and Reliability:
In the study, the details of the research process were tried to be explained.The accuracy of the steps was confirmed by the direct references from the forms of the candidate teachers.The opinions of 2 experts were taken related to metaphors and the created categories, and the categories were finally shaped based on the opinions received.In the comparisons, the internal reliability of the research was calculated by determining the numbers of consensus and dissensus and using the formula of Reliability = Consensus / Consensus + Dissensus.Reliability (Miles ve Huberman, 1994) in this research was calculated at 0.87.

5-Computerizing the Data:
At this stage of the research, 19 metaphors and 6 categories for the teacher concept; 26 metaphors and 7 categories for the teaching profession; 15 reasons and 3 categories for the reasons of choosing teaching profession were tabulated and computerized.

Findings
In this part of the study, the metaphors and metaphor categories revealed by the history teacher candidates were presented along with the answers given by the prospectives.

The metaphors regarding the "Teacher" Concept
The history teacher candidates produced 19 valid metaphors regarding the concept of "teacher".These metaphors were gathered in 6 categories has been presented in Table 2. Table 2 shows that the most preferred metaphors for the concept of teacher by the history teacher candidates are guide ( 14), lighthouse (13) and sculptor (11).The candidate teachers expressed the concept of teacher as directive ( 35).This category is followed by such categories asshaper (30), security of justice ( 15), producer of information (10), healer (10) and as a protector (10).We can see the categories in detail created based on the answers given by the candidate teachers regarding the concept of "teacher" below.

1-The teacher as a directive
In this category, there are 3 metaphors.These metaphors are respectively "lighthouse, compass and guide".The metaphors most expressed by the candidate teachers appear to be in this category.At this point, the most prominent characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" appears to be the guideness.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C. 11) * The teacher is like a lighthouse.S/he illuminates the route of societies.It is the person who leads in the darkness of ignorance.
(T.C.18)The teacher is like a compass.S/he enlightens us with her/his information so that we do not lose our way.S/he lights our way.
(T.C.21)The teacher is like a guide.S/he enables us to be on our way without troubles.S/he removes the obstacles ahead.S/he informs us.

2-The teacher as shaper
In this category, there are 4 metaphors.These metaphors are respectively "sculptor, architect, painter and artist".It can be said that the other characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" expressed by the candidate teachers is being shaper.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.53)The teacher is like a sculptor.S/he fills vast knowledge and experience in our empty mind.S/he sculpts our formless self and transforms us into a qualified individual.
(T.C.97)The teacher is like an architect.Just as an architect builds a building from base to roof, a teacher builds an individual from top to toe.
(T.C.32)The teacher is like a painter.Just as a painter shapes a blank canvas into a masterpiece, a teacher is miracle creating a masterpiece by shaping an ignorant individual into an intellectual.
(T.C.56)The teacher is like an artist.Information and people meet in the hands of the teacher.As the result of this meeting, enlightened and cultivated people grow.

3-The teacher as the securer of justice
In this category, there are 3 metaphors.These metaphors are respectively "judge, prosecutor and scales".It can be said that another characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" expressed by the candidate teachers is being the securer of justice.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.24)The teacher is like a judge.S/he assumes an egalitarian and democratic attitude among his students.S/he does not allow injustice.
(T.C.27)The teacher is like a prosecutor.S/he defends students' rights.S/he does not allow the strong to oppress the weak.S/he is the representative of justice in class.
(T.C.9)The teacher is like scales.S/he represents justice at school.S/he has equal attitudes among their students and stand against injustice.

4-The teacher as the producer of information
In this category, there are 4 metaphors.These metaphors are respectively "farmer, factory, servant and soothsayer".It can be said that the other characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" expressed by the candidate teachers is being the producer of information.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.101)The teacher is like a farmer.S/he raises new generations, informed minds.Society is the crop of the teacher.
(T.C.22)The teacher is like a factory.S/he works hard and makes an effort to produce the best.S/he controls her/his productions.
(T.C.14)The teacher is like a servant.S/he tries to serve the state and nation, but is never really paid off.S/he is ignored.
(T.C.93)The teacher is like a soothsayer.When s/he looks at a child, s/he sees her/his future, changes the lives by making necessary interventions.

5-The teacher as healer
In this category, there are 2 metaphors.These metaphors are listed as "doctor and psychologist".It can be said that the other characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" expressed by the candidate teachers is being a healer.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.3)The teacher is like a doctor.S/he enhances the intelligence of human mind.S/he equips students with information and save students' lives by their achievements in desperate situations.
(T.C.10)The teacher is like a psychologist.S/he listens to their students and brings solutions to their problems.

6-The teacher as a protector
In this category, there are 3 metaphors.These metaphors are listed as "tree, soldier and police".It can be said that the last characteristic for the concept of the "teacher" expressed by the candidate teachers is being a protector.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.35)The teacher is like a tree.S/he takes students under her/his wing.We are like fruits of our teachers.
(T.C.37)The teacher is like a soldier.Reliable and credible.
(T.C.59)The teacher is like a police officer.S/he protects students against bad conditions and makes the necessary intervention.

Metaphors regarding the Concept of Teaching
The history teacher candidates produced 26 valid metaphors regarding the concept of "teaching".These metaphors are collected in 7 categories, detailed datas are presented in Table 3. Table 3 shows that the most preferred metaphors for the concept of "teaching" are motherhood (15), lame ( 12) and money ( 8).The candidate teachers characterize the concept of "teaching" as a profession that is the expression of the difficulty ( 25).
This category is followed by the categories such as the source of need ( 23), self-sacrificing profession (20), a virtuous profession (15), informative ( 12), the construction of the future (8) and guiding ( 7).We will examine in detail, below, the categories created based on the written responses given by the candidate teachers regarding the concept of teaching.

1-Teaching as an expression of difficulty
In this category, there are 3 metaphors.These metaphors are listed as "war, water and lame man".The metaphors most expressed by the candidate teachers appear to be in this category.At this point, the most prominent characteristic for the concept of the "teaching" appears to be the difficulty.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.14) Teaching is like war.Despite many obstacles, you still burn in love with teaching, and you try to teach.
(T.C.55) Teaching is like water.It is a necessity, but it is difficult now to find better.Training teacher is difficult, and the required care is not shown.
(T.C.105) Teaching is like lame man.You struggle to do something, but some of them put a spoke in your wheel.The school principal, the curriculum, the parents... and you still try to do your job in the best way, even if you are clogged.

2-Teaching as the source of need
In this category, there are 5 metaphors.These metaphors are listed as "wall, sun, money, assistant and walking".It can be said that the other characteristic for the concept of the "teaching" expressed by the candidate teachers is need.In the candidate teachers' statements, this characteristic is exemplified as follows.
(T.C.73) Teaching is like a wall.Teaching is seen as equivalent to get gravy relying on the state.
(T.C.84) Teaching is like the sun.It is a glowing and desired job in search of a profession.
(T.C.37) Teaching is like money.It is a profession that is ageless for years and still in demand.Even if its reputation has declined, it is the reason for preference with the understanding that "at least, become a teacher".
(T.C.101) Teaching is like light.It is guiding with the information it gives.
(T.C.44) Teaching is like a guide.It guides and leads society.

Assessments regarding the reasons for becoming teachers
The history teacher candidates stated 15 reasons regarding becoming teachers.These reasons were collected in 3 categories, detailed datas are presented in Table 4.  Table 4 shows that the most prominent causes for choosing the teaching profession given by the history teacher candidates are "I chose because I love it" (28), "I choose to make money" ( 15) and "I chose to make my dreams come true."(11).The reasons for choosing the teaching profession are mostly concentrated in the category of love ( 52).This category is followed by categories of need ( 32) and responsibility (Table 4 shows that the most prominent causes for choosing the teaching profession given by the history teacher candidates are "I chose because I love it" (28), "I choose to make money" (15) and "I chose to make my dreams come true."(11).The reasons for choosing the teaching profession are mostly concentrated in the category of love ( 52).This category is followed by categories of need (32) and responsibility ( 26).

Discussion and Conclusion
The appearance of significant influences of metaphors in social sciences led study researchers to work on metaphors (Bredeson, 1988).Metaphor was also used in questioning the qualities of the teaching profession (Yildizli et. al.).All experiences before, during and after university can have an effect on the development of new understandings regarding events, situations and phenomena of the prospective history teachers.All these understandings directly influence the attitudes of individuals towards the profession.Therefore, the perceptions of the history teacher candidates about the concepts of "teacher" and "teaching" influence both the reasons for choosing the profession and give the clues about how to practice the profession.The accurate interpretation of the research results will make necessary readjustments possible in negative perceptions.
In the result of the answers given to the questions, "Teacher is like ... Because ..." in order to identify the understandings of the candidate teachers about "teacher" concept, the six themes, " teacher as a directive ","teacher as shaper"," teacher as securer of justice","teacher as the producer of information","teacher as a healer" and "teacher as a protector" have been achieved.Among these themes, the most popular one is "the teacher as a directive".From this point of view, teacher is like "guide-lighthouse-compass".The obtained data demonstrate that the understanding of the history teacher candidates is positive and constructive.It is also noteworthy that the preferred metaphors have a positive meaning.
The studies conducted by Tulunay Ates (2016), Koc (2014) identified positive perceptions about the concept of "teacher" and have similarities to this research.
The understandings of the history teacher candidates about the concept of "teaching" was classified in 7 categories, "teaching as expression of difficulty", "teaching as the source of need", "teaching as self-sacrificing", "teaching as a virtuous occupation", "teaching as informative", "teaching as the construction of future" and "teaching as guiding".Among these themes, the most popular one is "teaching as expression of difficulty".From this point of view, teaching is like "warwater-lame man".From the obtained data, it is seen that predominantly negative metaphors were used in describing the difficulty in the understandings of the history teacher candidates about the concept of "teaching".In the other categories that follows this category, the point of view regarding "teaching" as a source of income is striking.The metaphors forming the categories that emphasize the positive aspects of teaching are expressed later.It is noteworthy that similar negative metaphors about the concept of 'teaching' have been produced in different studies (Tasdemir & Tasdemir, 2011;Koc, 2014;Turan, Yildirim & Tikman, 2016).
In the assessment of the concept of teaching, along with the research that includes the metaphors in the categories such as guiding, shaper, source of information, some researches in the body of literature have been emphasized (Cook-Sather, 2003;Saban, 2004;Celikten, 2006;Yilmaz, Gocen & Yilmaz, 2013;Koc, 2014).In the study conducted by Budak and Kula (2017), participants defined the teaching profession as a profession that prepares students for life, is guiding, has a difficult process, is the source of information for students, leads society, requires affiliation with students, being selfsacrificing and protector, in which the personality traits of teacher are at the forefront and teacher is the life support.These results are coherent with the research.
When we examine the reason why history teacher candidates choose the teaching profession, there are 15 reasons in total in 3 categories as love, need and responsibility.The candidate teachers expressed "because they love it, it is their dreams, they have pleasure, they are happy and they love teaching" in the category of love; "to make money, to have leisure time, to be civil servant, for respectability and for parents' persistence" in the category of need as the reason for choosing the teaching profession.In the last category, responsibility, the candidate teachers expressed "for national service, for the contribution to society, to direct people to do good, to help others and to start the change"as the reason for choosing the teaching profession.In the study conducted by Nayir and Taneri (2013) on the reasons of candidate teachers for choosing the teaching profession, it is notable that the working conditions and the purpose of social contribution are shown among the reasons for choosing the profession and the study also has similar results.Based on the results of the research, it would not be wrong to say that the reasons for the choosing the teaching profession are influenced by the metaphors of the concept of "teacher" and "teaching".
Theacher candidates must see the right examples and guidance in a positively during the education of profession in turn the perception of the teaching profession can be shaped positively.For this purpose, it is necessary for lecturers of teacher training institutions to demonstrate exemplary behaviors and carry teacher qualifications.In addition, by increasing the "teaching practice" course, teacher candidates should ensure to experience more.If teacher candidates find sufficient opportunities for practice teaching, their teacher perception towards the teaching profession will be changed also positively.
If this kind of studies with candidate teachers increase in every field, it can be helpful in the planning and updating teacher training programs.
2 I chose it to start the change.1

Table 1 :
The descriptive information about the candidate teachers in the research group

Table 2 :
The metaphors and categories of the candidate teachers regarding the concept of "teacher"

Table 3 :
The metaphors and categories of the candidate teachers regarding the concept of "teaching"

Table 4 :
The results regarding the reasons for becoming teachers