“Shouting into a canyon” or “A golden goose Egg”: Understanding teachers’ emotional experience in distance learning through creative metaphor

Distance learning was a unique struggle for teachers, who reported some of the highest levels of stress among any professionals in the U.S. This study investigates teachers' emotional experience and creative development in COVID-19 pandemic distance learning through mixed method analysis of their generated metaphor about distance learning, integrating the circumplex model of affect and conceptual metaphor theory. Results present an overall positive shift in teachers' emotional relationship toward distance learning using complex and creative metaphoric representations. The emotional valence of teachers’ metaphors related to metaphor creativity and factors of teacher well-being. Teachers used humor often, mostly when representing unpleasant emotions.