Abstract
In this chapter, I try to make sense of the stories of my children in the different educational landscapes. Hong Kong and Toronto keep shifting their foreground and background in my telling. Centred on my children’s experiences, different stories of teaching and learning were highlighted, demonstrating the close connection of lives in school, family, and the society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Hong Kong has been ranked at the top few places in the PISA test for many years. The OECD publication, Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the United States (2011), has included both Hong Kong and Ontario in their detailed case studies, which are coincidentally the two key locales of my family stories.
- 2.
Fanny told me that some of her classmates who came from Korea or mainland China possessed very limited English language skills. Some of them could only say “Good morning” and “Goodbye” on the first few days. Andy also said that one of his classmates did not understand the words “Boys” and “Girls” on the doors of the washrooms and entered the wrong one.
- 3.
In each grade level, there were about five or six students in the school who needed ESL support. Fanny and Andy went to the respective groups for their grade levels during the normal class time. The ESL teacher provided individual learning materials and support for each student. The English language backgrounds of the students did vary a great deal, particularly at the start of the year.
References
Bateson, M. C. (1994). Peripheral visions: Learning along the way. HarperCollins.
Bateson, M. C. (2000). Full circles, overlapping lives: Culture and generation in transition. Ballantine.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. Jossey-Bass.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.
Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1995). Narrative and education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1(1), 73–85.
Craig, C. (2012). Butterfly under a pin: An emergent teacher image amid mandated curriculum reform. Journal of Educational Research, 105(2), 90–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2010.519411
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Perigee.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Simon & Schuster.
Dillard, A. (1988). An American childhood. HarperCollins.
Eisner, E. W. (1991). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. Macmillan.
Eisner, E. W. (1994). The educational imagination: On the design and evaluation of school programs. Macmillan.
Fadiman, D. (1990). Why do these kids love school? [Video]. KTEH-TV.
Geertz, C. (1995). After the fact: Two countries, four decades, one anthropologist. Harvard University Press.
Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom. Teachers College Press.
Heshusius, L., & Ballard, K. (1996). From positivism to interpretivism and beyond. Teachers College Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (1997). Cultivating humanity. Harvard University Press.
Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lau, CK. (2021). Education and School Life in Toronto. In: Life and Learning Between Hong Kong and Toronto. Intercultural Reciprocal Learning in Chinese and Western Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80052-9_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80052-9_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80051-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80052-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)