The business of learning to teach: A Critical Metaphor Analysis of one Teacher's journey

•We analyze one novice teacher's perceptions of her learning to teach process.•Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) reveals conflicting frames of learning to teach.•We discuss potential consequences of learning to teach in neoliberal contexts.•We use CMA to make visible the realities many teachers face within these contexts.

This article analyzes the learning to teach process of one novice teacher, Rachael, enrolled in an Urban Teacher Residency (UTR) in Harbor City, United States. Building on Loh and Hu's (2014) scholarship on neoliberalism and novice teachers, we employ Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) to make visible the ways in which Rachael contends with conflicting frames of learning to teach—TEACHING IS A JOURNEY vs. TEACHING IS A BUSINESS—within her program. Rachael encounters three primary obstacles: programmatic incompatibility, pedagogical paralysis, and, ultimately, programmatic abandonment. The discussion explores the potential consequences of learning to teach in neoliberal contexts.