Premised on the belief that students who enter teacher education programs bring with them a schema of teaching which serves as reference points for understanding new experiences, this study explored Filipino pre-service teachers' preconceptions on teacher roles through a metaphorical lens, with 125 sophomore and junior students from a comprehensive university in the Philippines as its subjects. Data came from actual drawings and written explanations, which were done by the subjects to represent their ideas on what a teacher is. Each subject was allowed time to show his/her work to a group and to discuss it orally. The metaphoric images were listed, tallied, analysed and categorised to show meaningful patterns and themes. Results showed that preconceptions converged into five clusters: knowledge source, direction-setter, character formatter, change agent and learner. Metaphors used were predominantly instructivist or teacher-centered, with some emerging constructivist or learner-centered leanings. The study offered possible explanations for these preconceptions, and their implications on teacher education programs.