Priceless Friendship: 15 Years of Reciprocal Learning between a Shanghai-Toronto Sister School Pair

• In Event: Intercultural and International Reciprocal Learning for the Improvement of School Education: Stories from a Toronto-Shanghai Sister School Network

Proposal

This paper tells the story of two university research teams and two elementary schools in Shanghai and Toronto. The Shanghai and Toronto sister schools have formed a deep friendship and grown together as a result of reciprocal learning for 15 years. Our study answers three questions: What are the stages of cross-cultural reciprocal learning that have been undergone by this Shanghai-Toronto sister school pair? What are the outcomes and gains in terms of school development? What are the lessons learned from all parties involved?

Our study shows that it takes three stages for the Shanghai-Toronto Sister School to carry out in-depth and quality cross-cultural reciprocal
learning. The three stages involved: 1) deciding on the framework of the Sister School program and clarifying ideas, 2) exploring mutual themes for collaboration and witnessing the first sign of reciprocity, and 3) deepening collaboration through reciprocal symbiosis and deep friendship.

Additionally, the Sister School partnership not only created a cross-cultural educational laboratory that generated numerous papers, research reports, and books, but it also developed a practical, low-cost and effective pathway for ordinary schools, teachers and students to engage in cross-cultural interactions and reciprocal learning. All participants in the Sister School were not only contributors but also learners who were willing to grow and improve educational practices together. For example, Chinese graduate students learned from their collaborating professors how to use qualitative research methods to collect research data, how to engage in cross-cultural communication with educators from a different country, and how to publish and present academic papers as co-researchers. Chinese principals learned about the strengths and limitations of Chinese schools’ collectivist cultural traditions through working with Canadian principals. They also learned from Canadian teachers’ approaches to fostering students’ innovation and inquiry consciousness, and thus learned to restructure the school’s curriculum to increase the proportion of comprehensive and project-based courses. As for Chinese university researchers, they realized the value of reciprocal learning in an era of globalization and increased cross-cultural conflicts. Moreover reciprocal learning should reflect the Chinese saying, “Achieving one’s own goal yields gratification, lending a hand to consummate others’ goal doubles satisfaction, goals of self and others can be unified, thus the world can be harmonized”（各美其美，美人之美，美美与共，天下大同). In conclusion, the Sister School Network not only strengthened collaborative research relationships between researchers and school educators, but also fostered professional learning and school development grounded in friendship amongst school principals, teachers, students, and university researchers in different parts of the globe.

Authors

• yuhua bu, Faculty of Education, East China Normal University

• Meng Dai, East China Normal University