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What does it mean to ‘understand’?

Despite its centrality to most, if not all educational endeavours, what is meant by ‘understanding’ is not clear and is highly contested (Ross, 2018). Pervasive throughout curriculum aims, assessment criteria and pedagogical frameworks, ‘understanding’ is often reduced to a set of skills and competencies relating to the acquisition, retention and recall of propositional knowledge (Hager, 2007). We propose an alternative view, one that highlights its relational and positional nature concerned with how an individual engages with and relates to the world around them.

We return to the term’s etymological roots, not to uncover its ‘true’ meaning – as the root of a word is not the key to its current interpretation (Nelson, 2022) – but rather to explore the history of the concept of ‘understanding’, thereby unveiling its metaphoric backdrop, character and potency. We find embedded in ‘understanding’ a metaphor that prioritises transformation rather than transmission. This has significant implications for education, because how we conceive of a thing shapes our actions (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

‘We find embedded in “understanding” a metaphor that prioritises transformation rather than transmission.’

‘To understand is to under-stand’

Ingrained in our everyday language it is easy to miss that ‘understand’ is comprised of two morphemes – the prefix ‘under’ and the verb ‘stand’.  But once seen, the previously hidden metaphor becomes apparent – ‘to understand’ is ‘to under-stand’; that is, to understand has something to do with ‘standing under’ that which is to be understood. But what might be meant by this is not immediately clear.

So, we traced the etymological roots of the Modern English verb to the Old English word ‘u�Ի������ٲ��Ի岹��’ and unveiled some important clues. We discovered that in addition to ‘stand below or beneath’, understandan was used to mean ‘to stand between and among’. While this duality makes its precise meaning hard to determine, there is a general consensus that understandan acted as a powerful metaphor denoting closeness to, familiarity with, and the adopting of a stance in relation to that which was being understood (Liberman, 2008; Newman, 2001). Viewed through this lens, ‘to understand’ relates to how and where we stand in relation to the object of study; how we encounter, engage with, orientate and position ourselves in relation to the world around us.

How we think metaphorically matters

Metaphors are not simply examples of figurative language but powerful heuristics – conceptual tools that reflect how we structure, restructure and create reality. Also, as noted above, metaphors matter as we act according to the way we conceive of things (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

As a result, the metaphor ‘TO UNDERSTAND IS TO UNDER-STAND’ has profound implications for education and for how educators frame their educational intentions; the design of the curriculum; the pedagogical choices they make in the classroom; and the ways in which they assess students’ learning. The role of the educator becomes less concerned with inputting information into students’ minds – a view which sees students’ minds as containers to be filled and privileges the educational metaphors of TRANSMISSION, ACQUISTION and STORAGE – and more concerned with orientating students within a landscape of ideas (Bereiter, 2002; Davis, 2018).

To conceive of understanding as positional and relational foregrounds agency and responsibility. It invites educators to design curricula that prioritise enquiry, dialogue and critical reflection, and adopt assessment practices that focus on the appraisal of how a student’s engagement with the object of study impacts on their understanding of both their own perspective(s) and those of others, and, in particular, on the quality of evidence used by students to justify and explain their position (Walshe & Teece, 2025).

Educational change begins with talking differently (Davis, 2018). By unveiling the metaphor ‘TO UNDERSTAND IS TO UNDER-STAND’, we glimpse the possibility of an education that is less about transmission and more about transformation; less about filling containers and more about positioning selves. In an era of marketised schooling and high-stakes testing, that feels both radical and necessary.

This blog post is based on the article

References

Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and mind in the knowledge age. Routledge.

Davis, B. (2018). On the many metaphors of learning … and their associated educational frames. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(2), 182–203.

Hager, P. (2007). Putting learning in its place. Conference proceeding (41st annual conference of the philosophy of education society of Great Britain, New College, Oxford, pp. 1–11).

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

Liberman, A. (2008). An analytic dictionary of English etymology: An introduction. University of Minnesota Press.  

Nelson, R. (2022). A history of inspiration through metaphors of learning: The height of teaching. Routledge.

Newman, J. (2001). How to understand ‘understand’. Neuphilologische mitteilungen, 102(2), 185–199.

Ross, L. (2018). Is understanding reducible? Inquiry, 63(2), 117–135.

Walshe, K., & Teece, G., (2025). On understanding ‘understanding’ in religious education. In M. Ubani (Ed.), Religion, learning, literacy. Theories and concepts and for 21st public education. Palgrave.