Rodgers on calls for observable verbs*

This paper takes up Shannon Rodgers’ 2016 critique of curriculum writers’ call for observable verbs (‘Minding our metaphors in education.’ Educational Philosophy and Theory 48 (6), pp. 563–578), and argues that a more effective line of critique should focus not on metaphorical thinking, but on the notion of observation itself, by way of Nietzsche on metaphor, the history of astronomy, the non-existence of dragons and dissuading indigenous people from voting.