Negotiating My Perspectives on the Professional Identity of Teachers Through Reengagement With a Canada-China Teacher Partnership

• In Event: 18.071 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 18.071-6 - Chinese Teachers and North American Schools: Navigating Language, Culture, and Identity

Abstract

This narrative inquiry tells and retells of my stories growing as a student teacher from China, a graduate student in education, a teacher educator, and a researcher. It explores how my perception towards teachers’ professional identity have been continuously constructed and reconstructed through learning and researching with a pair of teachers (one from Canada and the other from China), in a Canada-China Reciprocal Learning Project. Over the last six years, cross-cultural learning in Canada provided me a different lens to see teachers and teacher learning. Stories in this study involves reflection and discussion of the tensions and connections between two cultures of learning, and emphasize teachers’ multiple identities in profession and advocate rethinking on authentic teacher learning.

Author

• Ying Chen, University of Toronto