Regenerating narrative inquiry for teacher growth on a Toronto-Shanghai Sister School partnership landscape

In this paper, I demonstrate a way of conducting narrative inquiry that is oriented towards understanding and improving teachers’ experiences in a particular Toronto–Shanghai/West–East Sister School reciprocal learning partnership. I show how this narrative inquiry process is informed by a Deweyan way of thinking about experience and is enriched by the Confucian idea of being a good guest. I illustrate how this inquiry process involves teachers and researchers as collaborative and reciprocal learners on the Dao of further personal and professional growth and learning. I suggest that conducting narrative inquiry in a Canada–China interschool setting could give rise to West–East reciprocal learning communities that have the potential of bridging the cultural and historical narratives that underlie Chinese and North American education. It could also create the harmonious and democratic educational conditions for fostering global citizens as learners in our 21st century.