Autobiography and Teacher Development in China

Zhong Qiquan, East China Normal University, ChinaDaniel Tröhler, University of Luxembourg, LuxembourgOu Yung-Sheng, Taiwan Shoufu Normal University, TaiwanJanet L. Miller, Teachers College, Columbia University, USANicholas Ng-A-Fook, Ottawa University, CanadaZhang, Wenjun, Zhejiang University, ChinaPeng Zheng-mei, East China Normal University, ChinaChen Yuting, Institute of Educational Science, Tianjin, ChinaElizabeth Macedo, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, BrazilChen Xiangming, Beijing University, ChinaQian Xu-yang, Hangzhou Normal University, ChinaRong Tingwei, Hangzhou Normal University, China

• Introduction; William F. Pinar 1. On Teacher Development; Zhang Hua 2. New Challenges of Teacher Development in China; Zhong Qiquan 3. Curriculum and Teaching in Recent Policies in Brazil; Elizabeth Macedo 4. Philosophy for Children in China: Teacher Knowledge and Teacher Development; Gao Zhenyu 5. Autobiography, Intellectual Topographies, and Teacher Development; Nicholas Ng-A-Fook 6. Teachers Professional Development in China; Chen Yuting 7. Technologizing Teacher Development?; Qian Xuyang 8. Without Experience Is Teacher Development Possible?; William F. Pinar 9. Meaning-Making of Chinese Teachers in the Curriculum Reform; Chen Xiangming Epilogue: Teachers as Moral Intellectuals; Zhang Hua

"At a moment when the "flat world," the utopian promise of technology, and the demands for numerical accountability structure the conversation on education and teaching, the appearance of a book on contemporary curriculum reform in China is particularly important. In Autobiography and Teacher Development in China, Zhang Hua and William F. Pinar offer a series of essays that present and analyze the complex aspects of China's curriculum reform efforts, many of which resemble the neoliberal reform efforts now hegemonic in the US and Europe and spreading across the globe. But the authors disrupt any easy equation of Chinese curricular efforts with those reforms, and in doing so, reveal how a vision of the good teacher shifts and changes depending on national, cultural, local, and community contexts and individuals' situations. The issues raised and addressed in the essays - the effect of technology on the teacher-student relationship, the specificity of what it means to teach and be a teacher and the importance of autobiographical work in teacher education and teaching - appear in the context of China's teacher development efforts. They speak, however, to teachers everywhere who face the pressures of neoliberal education reforms and who look for language and visions that can serve as an alternative to those reforms." - Peter M. Taubman, Department of Secondary Education, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, USA