Narrative Inquiry Into Reciprocal Learning Between Canada China Sister Schools

"Every once and awhile, a book comes along that fills gaping holes in one's knowing. Such was the case with Narrative Inquiry into Reciprocal Learning Between Canada-China Sister Schools: A Chinese Perspective. The volume was so engaging that I could not put it down. I read it in one sitting. It definitely is a mustread book because it illuminates-in vivid detail-intercultural experiences from a Chinese point of view." -Cheryl J. Craig, Professor and Houston Endowment Endowed Chair of Urban Education, Texas A&M University, USA This edited volume explores how Chinese school-based educators learn from others and attain awareness in dialogue with the world in an era of increasing globalization and information exchange. Minzhu Primary School in Shanghai, China, and Bay Street School in Toronto, Canada, have been connected as sister schools of cross-cultural exchange since 2008. Together, they have explored ways to reciprocally learn in a cross-cultural partnership while remaining grounded in their home culture and language. In this book, chapter authors examine how Chinese school-based educators view themselves, understand others, and grow and develop as a consequence of a decade of cross-cultural reciprocal learning as sister schools. Further, the authors discuss prospects for future educational interactions between Canada and China. Yuhua Bu is Professor, PhD Supervisor, and Deputy Director of both the Institute of "Life Practice" Educology Research and the Institute of Schooling Reform and Development at East China Normal University, China. Her research interests include philosophy of education, teacher education, school reform, and ethics of education.

This edited volume explores how Chinese school-based educators learn from others and attain awareness in dialogue with the world in an era of increasing globalization and information exchange. Minzhu Primary School in Shanghai, China, and Bay Street School in Toronto, Canada, have been connected as sister schools of cross-cultural exchange since 2008. Together, they have explored ways to reciprocally learn in a cross-cultural partnership while remaining grounded in their home culture and language. In this book, chapter authors examine how Chinese school-based educators view themselves, understand others, and grow and develop as a consequence of a decade of cross-cultural reciprocal learning as sister schools. Further, the authors discuss prospects for future educational interactions between Canada and China.

This edited volume examines new ways of teaching mathematics through a cross-cultural reciprocal learning project between sister schools in Canada and China. Situating teacher learning in the intersection of the two different school systems, curriculums, and cultures of mathematics learning and teaching in both nations, this volume offers teachers a unique and much-needed perspective on how practices between countries become more and more likely shaped by each other in the emerging global society. Born out of a comparative study project sponsored by the SSHRC, this volume compiles five years' worth of findings from reciprocal partnerships between researchers, teachers, school administrators, and students from both nations. Through the process of reciprocal learning and narrative inquiry, the research described in these chapters illuminates the unknown and shares newly-created mathematics education knowledge.

This book enriches the discourse around Global Citizenship Education in teacher education through the example of a teacher's experience in a Canada-China Sister School reciprocal learning landscape. Instead of positioning global citizenship teaching and learning as a set of fixed goals to be attained by teachers alone, this book approaches global citizenship teaching and learning as unfinished lifework in progress and as situated curriculum problems to be inquired together by university researchers, school teachers, and students under the spirit of reciprocity and community. This reimagination of narratives, theory, and action start from collaborative and reciprocal learning partnerships among Chinese and Canadian researchers and teachers in the practicality of re-searching and re-enacting the purpose and meanings of twenty-first century education in a Canada-China Sister School setting.

This book presents a narrative inquiry into the cross-cultural educational experiences of a family living in Hong Kong and Toronto, Canada. At heart a go-and-return story, Lau reflects on the difficulties of adjusting to the different practices of teaching and learning in two places with their own distinctive cultures. Ever more prescient now amid the current social and political upheavals in Hong Kong and around the world, the book considers the profound impacts such transitions have on families. By delving into the challenges of living, working, and learning across cultures, he reflects upon the deep-rooted values in both family and school landscapes to gain new insights about educational and cultural practices in Hong Kong and Toronto.

This book revolves around curriculum making, reciprocal learning, and the best-loved self. It draws on extensive school-based studies conducted with teachers in the United States, China, and Canada, and weaves in experiences from other cross-national projects, keynote addresses, archival research, and editorial work. The elucidation of the ‘best-loved self’ drives home the point that teachers are more than the subject matter they teach: they are students’ role models and allies. Curriculum making and reciprocal learning relationships enrich teachers’ and students’ being and becoming as they live curriculum alongside one another—with the goal of more satisfying lives held firmly in view.

This book is a narrative inquiry that focuses on four participating Chinese teacher candidates’ cross-cultural learning in Canada and stories of induction in Southwest China. Through the lens of “three-dimensional inquiry space” and “reciprocal learning in teacher education,” the author explores the influence of cross-cultural experiences on the dissonance of pedagogies, teacher-student relationships, socialization, and beliefs about teaching and learning that interweave global and national curriculum boundaries. The chapters provide insight into how Chinese beginning teachers struggle to voice and to socialize among a cacophony of past practices, lived experiences, and cross-cultural experiences.

In 2000, the “Western Development” plan of the Chinese Mainland attracted attention of educators and policy makers. Around that period, the Chinese government also launched large scale and systemic curriculum reforms in basic education and secondary education in achieving quality education across the vast country. Despite significant progress that has been made in educational investments and attainments in China, issues of quality and regional disparities across China remain, especially in the less developed, western part of China where the significance of ethnic diversity, urban-rural disparity and variations in school development exists. In addition, there have been entrenched problems of teacher and teaching quality, resources inadequacy and ‘left-behind’ children. Written by a group of Chinese and international scholars, the book provides an updated analysis and discussion of educational development and related issues in the less developed part of Western China. These chapters cover broad contextual issues of educational development and reforms, issues of quality and equality in different sectors of education, as well as curriculum implementation, teaching innovations and professional development of teachers.