The Encounter
The dean of education sat in his office, waiting for the arrival of an important guest. The office was obviously too small for his huge book collection, and since he had moved into it, he had chosen to work at an ordinary IKEA desk hidden behind walls of books and journals. As the head of the university’s largest academic unit, Teacher Yu had been appointed dean of a newly constituted faculty of education, which was intended to consolidate the myriad functions of a growing number of units with clear affiliation to educational studies. Teacher Yu had a number of embryonic ideas for moving the faculty forward in an increasingly competitive environment of Chinese higher education. Even though these ideas were a mixture of aspirations toward enhanced branding, the scholarship of his faculty, professed beliefs in an axiological anchor for curriculum and teaching, and undefined actions targeting internationalization, he believed that they could bring the faculty to a new stage of development.
Ordinarily, Teacher Yu could talk endlessly about his ideas, for he liked to sound out others on new ideas, particularly his students. He was always nice to his students, taking them out for food, drinks and singing, and expounding with them his views on postmodernism and the future of Chinese education, but as he awaited the arrival of his guest, he was focusing expectantly on the scholarly dialogue that he hoped, with some trepidation, would emerge during his meeting with the visitor.
The visitor , William Pinar, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, was an important figure in Curriculum Studies. His new approach to curriculum inquiry, the Currere, was well known among certain academic pockets in China. Teacher Yu appreciated Pinar’s book , Understanding Curriculum, and considered it a major theoretical source for his study of postmodernism. He later confided to the visitor that he had read the voluminous monograph thrice. The meeting with Pinar was the highlight of the day for Teacher Yu, for it provided a pleasant diversion from the mundane duties of a dean.
When Pinar was escorted into the dean’s office, Teacher Yu was burying himself in work, teapot within reach but the flowers and fruits that were the standard paraphernalia for the reception of foreign guests were noticeable by their absence. Instead of the drawn-out ceremonial greetings that were a part of the protocol, Teacher Yu took Pinar for a tour of his book collection. The books on his shelves were a collection of philosophical, educational, and historical books, some various editions of the same titles, and tomes, some recondite, by certain historical figures in the disciplines that formed his “academic foundation.” Teacher Yu wanted to share the excitement of having owned certain “treasures” in his book collection with Pinar. He climbed the ladder-stool a few times to retrieve books in Chinese or English to show the visitor—a rare edition of the Analect here and the inaugural lecture of a prominent scholar there. Before long, the host and the visitor realized that they shared ample common interest in the thoughts of Foucault, Derrida, Dewey, Locke, Whitehead, Kant, and Weber, to name but few. It appeared that what had been merely a courtesy visit had become an occasion for true scholarly bonding.
Before his departure from China, Pinar remarked to his guide, a young teacher in his host’s faculty, that “it would be interesting to learn about Yu’s intellectual history.” At the time, he was actively involved in a project that examined the development of Curriculum Studies in various parts of the world through the study of the intellectual histories of individual scholars. His meeting with Teacher Yu had naturally led him to focus his lens on the intellectual development of a scholar who was a fellow traveler on a parallel path of scholarship.
Subsequently, the young teacher talked to dean Yu about being interviewed for the project. She said it would be a study of his intellectual history, approached from multiple perspectives that would include his personal academic influences. Dean Yu agreed and it was decided to focus the study on his ideas, education, and work. The interviews continued over the course of two years, and this book is a record of those interviews. Soon after the first interview, it was learned that Teacher Yu would take up yet another change of appointment, becoming the principal of one of the university’s affiliated primary schools.
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Observers of Chinese education today tend to see it as one of the driving forces behind China’s rapid rise as a world power. The transformation of Chinese education from near-dormancy to vibrant revival has captured the interest of educators around the world. The expansion of its education system has made learning available to millions of children in some of the poorest regions in the country. A dramatic increase in university enrollment, further augmented by widespread participation in distance learning, has elevated the quality of China’s workforce to a new height. The recent outstanding performance of Shanghai students in international assessments of academic achievement may be taken as evidence of the country’s educational success.
Its impressive achievements notwithstanding, Chinese education has also displayed gross disparities among geographic regions and various types of schools and higher institutions. Implementation of educational and curricular reforms has yielded uneven results, favoring schools in the more affluent localities. Schooling is still examination-oriented, and university students spend too much time on attending lectures rather than on activities that can enrich their college experiences. As the world learns to appreciate the strengths and limitations of Chinese education through reports, studies, and visits, more questions have surfaced regarding the future direction of its educational institutions, the aspirations of its students and teachers, and the deeper meaning of China’s educational development.
Our understanding of Chinese education has been informed by personal experiences, formal study in academic courses, observations in field research, and a steady flow of observations embedded in the literature in the field. A continuous survey of literature has given the authors the impression that, until recently, noteworthy studies on the educational development in China have mainly focused on the education system or a sector of the system rather than on its stakeholders, such as teachers and students. This tendency is especially discernible in early publications that purport to be “value-neutral” studies, which delineate the broad economic and political forces that have shaped the modernization of education in China. 1
In the research for this book, we dug deeper into the literature and found that there was a conspicuous absence of “the person” in English language publications on Chinese education. There are a few early studies on Chinese educators, but they are generally considered as studies of Chinese intellectuals, a study of a social group that had left a strong imprint on the country’s development. 2 Studies on Chinese educators, then, are mostly portrayals of prominent public intellectuals serving in the capacity of educators. 3 The focus of these studies is mainly on their place in the system and their role in bringing about systemic changes. Their life and work are posited in the broad context of general societal development, not in educational settings. Their trials and tribulations and their individual struggles as educators are masked by the system which evolved under their stewardship. Such an absence fails to reflect the flavor or color, or emphasize the capacity of education as a social institution by not giving due consideration to the agency of individual educators who work to change the system.
A critical discourse on the agency of individual educators is important because they constitute a major constituency in the education system. Their journeys crisscross the educational landscape shaping its contours of thought and practice. Along the pathways of their life and work, educational insights can be gained from the personal experiences of these educators. The ways that individual educators frame and make sense of their worlds and life-changing events represent not only their own ideas and thinking but also reflect the intellectual currents of their times.
Guiding Literature
Three studies have mainly inspired the writing of this book. Their approaches to studying Chinese educators mark a noteworthy departure from the mainstream literature. Rather than treating the contribution of the person to the system as their principal concern, these studies situate individual educators as persons at the center of their exploration. The examination of the ideas, values, and identity in relation to the personal histories of individual Chinese educators affords an intimate portrayal of persons responding to shifting situations in their lives. Some of these educators are scholar-teachers of an older generation who have anchored the development of educational studies in China. Others are educators who have crossed national and cultural borders to work in different educational settings. Still, others are experts in Curriculum Studies who have contributed to the establishment of the field in China.
In her book, Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators, published in Hayhoe 2007 , Ruth Hayhoe adopts a “narrative approach” to the study of eleven prominent scholars in contemporary Chinese education. The work of these influential educators is discussed in terms of their contribution to various sub-fields of educational studies, such as comparative education, theory of learning, higher education, philosophy of education, and moral education. Their life experiences as members of families, institutions, communities, and nation are examined along with an exposition of their core values and educational views. The study gives voice to a group of scholar-teachers that is influential in educational studies in China but has had only limited exposure in Western literature. In the process of creating portraits of these educators with findings ...