AbstractEducational researchers have begun exploring teachers’ beliefs and construction of knowledge through their use of metaphors. In this study undergraduate and graduate education students were asked to respond to open‐ended statements and a list of similes describing what teachers, students, and classrooms were like. A comparison of the subject generated similes with the simile list responses suggested that the simile list responses were valid reflections of the subjects’ personal metaphors. A factor analysis of the responses to the similes generated interpretable constructs for understanding the relationships underlying the similes.