Theorizing Teacher Learning With Chinese Characteristics: Teachers’ Holistic Learning in Core Reflection to Link Practice,Theory,and Person

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to show how a holistic approach to teacher learning can narrow the gap between practice, theory, and person. The facilitator-guided core reflection employed in the approach may serve as a powerful tool for teacher professional development.

Design/Approach/Methods

The study integrates a modified version of Korthagen's onion model and Chinese cultural resources as the theoretical framework to examine how a narrative action research workshop in China attempted to assist teachers in holistic learning. Qualitative research methods are used to collect and analyze data focusing on one class teacher's case.

Findings

The findings illustrate that the core reflection helped the teacher recognize and rectify the incongruencies between multi-layers of her learning, such as doing, knowing, feeling, and aspiring. The mechanisms that the facilitator used to help the teacher learn include (1) prompting the teacher to realize her mismatched practices by asking soul-searching questions, (2) introducing theories to explain why and how her practices were inconsistent, (3) evoking her core qualities of empathy and compassion emblematic of Chinese culture through core reflection.

Originality/Value

The value of this study lies in illustrating some typical cultural characteristics of Chinese teachers’ holistic learning. This finding as well as the conceptual framework of this study may provide references for teacher education not only in China but also in other parts of the world.

Keywords

Chinese culture core reflection gap between practice,theory,and person teacher holistic learning teacher education

Introduction

The divide between practice and theory has long been an issue in Chinese teacher education (Chen, 2024). Almost all teacher education institutions use, more or less, the same technical model of transmitting theoretical knowledge to prospective teachers before they try to apply it in schools. As a result, most of them (if not all) encounter “reality shock” when they start to work in schools (Chen et al., 2023). In-service teacher training has followed a similar model, with theory indoctrination before hands-on practice, and has consequently led to numerous complaints from teachers. They often find that what is taught in the training does not align with what is most needed in schools (Weng, 2020).

While the gap between theory and practice is huge in Chinese teacher education, the feelings and emotions as well as the needs and wants of the teacher as a person are even more neglected (Chen, 2024). With over 200 million school-age children competing on a narrow track for higher levels of learning, Chinese teachers, with over 18 million in number, are under tremendous pressure from administrators, parents, students, and fellow teachers (Qu, 2019). Most of them are tired of learning packaged theories disconnected from reality and yearn for more integrated professional activities sensitive to their emotions and aspirations (Zheng & Zhang, 2017). Previous studies have shown that in teacher learning, not only is the link between practice and theory important, but more significantly, the connection of these with the teacher as a person (Korthagen, 2017). Teachers’ professional growth depends on the unconscious development of their feelings and motivation, as well as the conscious development of their cognition.

To establish fruitful connections between practice, theory, and person, reflection has been used as a useful mediation (Zhou & Zhang, 2017). Korthagen (2004, 2017) has developed an onion model with six layers (environment, behavior, competence, belief, identity, and mission) to facilitate meaning-oriented core reflection. The assumption is that teachers will become more effective if all the layers are aligned, i.e., if what inspires them concurs with how they define their role, with how they think about and act in specific situations, and with what is suitable in the environment. In addition, the reflection is focused on the inner layers of the onion model such as identity and mission (Korthagen, 2017, p. 395).

While there has been considerable discussion about the gap between theory and practice as well as reflective practice in Chinese teacher education (Chen & Yang, 2013; Ning, 2013; Weng, 2020), empirical research is scarce in illustrating how teacher professional development programs can contribute to narrowing this gap. This study aims to analyze how a narrative action research workshop in China attempted to narrow this triangular gap by incorporating Korthagen's core reflection and Chinese cultural resources as the conceptual framework.

The workshop was organized by the Beijing Institute of Education Research with 34 teachers and 6 facilitators from September 2019 to October 2020. The objective of the workshop was to help the teachers identify recurrent difficulties in their work, understand their own mindsets in their storytelling/retelling of the process of dealing with the difficulties, and finally transform their mindsets through action intervention.

The teachers and facilitators from different learning institutions in Beijing volunteered to participate in the workshop. They met once every three weeks for one-day intensive learning. For the rest of the time, the teachers conducted their own research, exchanged ideas in groups, and wrote reflective memos after each class. Throughout the workshop, the facilitators supported the teachers with a variety of means, such as organizing group discussions and one-to-one coaching, giving feedback on each teacher's writings, inviting teachers for team teaching, and providing relevant literature. By the end of the workshop, most of the teachers have published their stories in journals and books (Chen & Wang, 2024), and some of them have been invited to give talks at schools, universities, and academic conferences. In their daily practice, a majority of them are making use of what they have learned in the workshop.

Our revised model of Korthagen's framework offers a very good lens to help make meaning of the impact of the workshop, by revealing how the facilitators’ guided core reflection assisted the teachers in learning. By way of aligning different layers of teacher learning, the model sheds light on how the teachers’ holistic learning is possible in a Chinese teacher professional development context.

This study has important implications in that its findings can provide insights into a holistic approach to teacher education in China and other parts of the world with similar cultural and educational contexts. At the same time, it has the potential to develop an analytical framework of integrating Western and Chinese theoretical resources for studying teacher learning.

Literature review

Since the aim of this study is to explore how core reflection helped Chinese teachers achieve holistic learning, the literature focuses on core reflection with related concepts such as the relationship between theory and practice, and reflection. I will introduce the research on these concepts first as they are the basis for core reflection.

Regarding the link between theory and practice, the current dominant approach is mostly top-down, advocating practitioners to learn theories before applying them in their practice (Chen, 2024; Kerlinger, 1986). Theories are considered superior to practice and can guide practice with legitimacy. In the last 40 years, a less prominent bottom-up approach occurred, encouraging practitioners to begin with their own practice and develop their own practical knowledge/wisdom by dialoguing with existing theories (Chen et al., 2011; Wei, 2020). In the second approach, there is a further division between theories with a small “t” and theories with a capital “T.” The former is developed by practitioners called “action-guiding knowledge,” while the latter is developed by academia named “expert-knowledge” (Korthagen, 1999; Zhou, 2012).

This study mainly takes the second approach, regarding teachers’ personal experience as a fruitful source for the development of their own “action-guiding knowledge.” By examining how the teachers learned through the facilitators’ guided core reflection in the above-mentioned workshop, we hope to illustrate that the teachers do have the potential to develop their own practical knowledge through dialogue with “expert knowledge.”

Reflection, as defined by Hegel, means thinking about thinking, taking thinking itself as the object of reflection (Sun, 2001). Locker similarly considered reflection as the contemplation of ideas through the retrospection of one's mind (Xiong, 2002). Dewey (1933, cited from Ning, 2013) defined reflection as “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” In contrast to Dewey's association of reflective thinking with the scientific method (Ning, 2013), Schön (1983) invented the term “reflection-in-action” to capture the moments when practitioners assess the outcomes of their complex problem-solving efforts before reframing the problem.

On the basis of previous research, Korthagen (1985) developed a structured reflection model, ALACT, consisting of five stages: action, looking back, awareness of the key aspects, creating alternative methods of action, and trial. Later, influenced by positive psychology, he realized the limitations of the model's overly focusing on problems with a rational action–orientation, and no contents of reflection (Korthagen et al., 2012, pp. 19–20). Therefore, he created an onion model with contents of reflection (i.e., the six layers mentioned above) as an important addition. The onion model helps to determine at which layer or layers the teacher's problems are located, and by which layer or layers the process of reflection can be deepened and broadened.

When the reflection aims at the alignment of all the six layers with a focus on the inner layers of identity and mission, it is called “core reflection” (Korthagen et al., 2012, p. 20). Core reflection can help the professional growth of teachers on their sources of inspiration and personal strengths by evoking and enhancing the core qualities of a teacher as a person, such as will, courage, resilience, attention, humor, etc. (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005, p. 67). Good teaching is achieved when there is a steady consistency among the six layers (Evelein & Korthagen, 2015, p. 64), which helps to arrive at an all-encompassing view of what it means to be a good teacher (Korthagen, 2017, p. 397). Consequently, teachers’ reflection should encompass not only their thinking but also their emotions and desires, so that a balance can be maintained between the teacherhood of a person as a teacher and the personhood of the teacher as a person (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005).

The relationship between theory and practice has long been discussed in the research on Chinese teacher education (Chen et al., 2011; Li, 2006; Ning, 2013). More recently, there is a growing chorus advocating surpassing the mere link between theory and practice and focusing on the holistic growth of the teacher as a person (Chen, 2024). Reflection, or rather introspection (nei xing 内省), has always been considered a core quality of educated people in Chinese cultural tradition. Principles such as Doctrine of the Mean (Zhong Yong 中庸), practical reasoning (shi jian tui li 实践推理), and unity between knowing and action (zhi xing he yi 知行合一) all need reflection as mediation to be implemented (Chen & Yang, 2013).

The literature review outlined above reveals that, except for Korthagen and his team's work, little research has been conducted on how teacher professional development programs can help bridge the gap between practice, theory, and person. The literature review also provides a valuable theoretical perspective for our study, especially Korthagen's concept of core reflection. In this paper, we will modify Korthagen's core reflection for our own needs and integrate Chinese cultural resources to analyze the data from the teacher narrative action research workshop.

Research questions and conceptual framework

The research question for this study is: How did the teachers’ holistic learning to integrate practice, theory, and person take place in the workshop? There are three sub-questions under this overarching question: (1) How was the gap between practice, theory, and person manifested in the teachers’ work? (2) How were guided core reflection and Chinese cultural resources employed to narrow this gap in the workshop? (3) What learning outcomes resulted from this effort?

The key concepts in the research questions are operationalized as follows. The term “teachers’ holistic learning” means the kind of learning that not only caters to the teachers’ cognitive development but, more importantly, also their feelings and emotions as well as their needs and wants in learning. The “gap between practice, theory, and person” refers to the divide between what the teachers do, what they believe, what they have learned about propositions, and how they feel and aspire. “Core reflection” is the kind of reflection that aims at alignment of all the layers, focusing on the inner layers of identity and mission in the onion model. “Chinese cultural resources” indicates the Doctrine of the Mean and practical reasoning in this paper. The former emphasizes the importance of taking a moderate stance, not going to extremes, while the latter advocates making decisions according to one's needs and contextual conditions.

Based on our team's research experience (Chen, 2024; Chen et al., 2011) and the relevant literature (Korthagen, 2017; Korthagen et al., 2012; Korthagen & Lagerwerf, 2001; Zhou, 2014), we designed a conceptual framework for this study (Figure 1). In this framework, we made some modifications to Korthagen's model, as we did not find an explicit specification of the relationships between the three dimensions, the six layers, and the gap between practice, theory, and person in Korthagen's work.

Figure 1.

Conceptual framework of the study.

According to our understanding, the three dimensions refer to the factors that impact teachers’ behavior, i.e., not only cognition but also emotions and needs. The link between practice, theory, and person concerns teachers’ holistic development. While the relationship between theory and practice usually touches upon cognition, a person mostly involves teachers’ emotions and needs. With regard to the six layers, in our opinion, if the environment is considered an external factor, the other five layers can be reduced to four, with behavior and competence equivalent to doing, belief to knowing, identity to feeling, and mission to aspiring. Roughly speaking, doing may be equivalent to practice, knowing to theory, and person to feeling and aspiring.

In this way, the three sets of concepts are integrated into a simpler system. We are aware that this simplified version may ignore the fact that both identity and mission contain feelings and needs simultaneously, and even cognition. The purpose of our simplification is for the convenience of analysis. Since previous research has mostly focused on the incongruity between theory (belief, knowing) and practice (behavior, doing), this study pays more attention to the person, further divided into feeling (identity) and aspiring (mission).

This framework is meant to illustrate that the facilitators of the workshop employed meaning-oriented core reflection to help the teachers recognize and fill in the gap between practice, theory, and person, illustrated by the five layers. In the process of the core reflection, the teachers made use of relevant Chinese cultural resources to discern the discrepancies and make decisions to improve the alignment. As a result, their core qualities were brought into full play.

Research methods and process

For this investigation, the above-mentioned one-year-long teacher narrative action research workshop was chosen as the field of study. The author of this paper served as the team leader as well as facilitator for the workshop. The workshop was selected because it offered a good example of teachers’ holistic learning for our study. Due to the safe and trusting environment mainly created by the facilitators, the teachers openly told and retold their stories about the “troubles” in their work, charged with strong emotions such as pain and confusion. They also took actions to change the status quo according to their aspirations, since the workshop changed narrative inquiry to narrative action research.

The structural arrangement of the workshop was also conducive to the teachers’ holistic learning. The teachers were divided into small groups with the facilitators as their personal coaches. As a result of their close and individualized contact with the facilitators, the teachers had the opportunity to conduct deep core reflection to narrow the gap between different layers of their learning. Consequently, the focus of inquiry for this study, i.e., the impact of the facilitator-guided core reflection on the teachers’ holistic learning, could be described and analyzed with sufficient data.

The data for the study was gathered by observing the workshop activities, especially meetings between the facilitators and the teachers, interviewing the key informants, and collecting the teachers’ reflection memos and narratives. Data was analyzed through categorization (coding and generation of categories and patterns) and contextualization (narrative writing and graphing). Informed consent was obtained from all the participants and all the names in this paper were anonymous.

During and after the workshop, our research team has been conducting research with the participants. Due to the length of this paper, only the case of one teacher, Mrs. Liu, was selected for analysis. Mrs. Liu was a 49-year-old Chinese language teacher and also the class teacher (ban zhu ren 班主任)¹ in the Fifth Grade when she joined the workshop in 2019. Her school, with a history of 68 years, was located in downtown Beijing, with about 1,200 students from 29 classes, along with 75 teachers. The education quality of the school was at the top according to the ranking of student examination scores in the district. Mrs. Liu had worked in this school for 30 years, and she loved her work very much. We chose Mrs. Liu as the case teacher in this paper because her story was typical of Chinese class teachers, her reflection was deep, and her interaction with the facilitators and other teachers was active.

Research findings: Am I an exemplary class teacher?

Mrs. Liu has been awarded exemplary class teacher in Beijing every year since her early 30s. She even published a book on how to become an exemplary class teacher, and was selected by the local administration as one of the few outstanding class teachers to open their own studio to train yang class teachers. She managed her class so well that all the students liked her very much, and the class was well-known for its outstanding performance and solidarity.

Mrs. Liu's story with Little Yang

Five years ago, however, Mrs. Liu encountered an unprecedented trouble. Little Yang, an extremely low-performing and naughty boy, entered her class. Since then, he has become a nightmare in her life. He was bold and rebelling, making all kinds of troubles and not abiding by any discipline of the school. Mrs. Liu tried every possible means to help him, from reasoning patiently with him to severely scolding him, from trying to move him with emotions to organizing the whole class to criticize him, and from praising him whenever he did something good to reporting to his parents. However, all her efforts did not work. Every day, other students and subject teachers kept complaining to her about Little Yang's misconduct. She was deeply worried about him and, at the same time, felt a loss of face as if she were incompetent as a class teacher.

Little Yang's father was a high-ranking officer in the education bureau where Mrs. Liu worked, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher in the same district. In spite of their professional backgrounds, they never supported Mrs. Liu's work, except for blaming her for her incompetence in handling their only son. Little Yang's father was a hot-tempered and face-caring man. Whenever Mrs. Liu asked him to come to school because of Little Yang's mischief, he would hit Little Yang badly at home. Mrs. Liu was so nervous about her behavior toward Little Yang, fearing that his parents would sue her to the school authorities and that she might be dismissed one day.

Although an exemplary class teacher, Mrs. Liu was actually quite lonely in her school, lacking support from her peers and administrators. The school culture was such that telling others that she could not manage a boy in her class would be a big shame on her. Out of her wits’ end, Mrs. Liu went so far as to check out all the policy documents of the school, hoping to see if there was a possibility to dismiss Little Yang from the school. With great disappointment, she did not find any item in the documents that may support her wishful thinking.

In the interview, Mrs. Liu told us,

For the last five years, I’ve been battling with Little Yang even in my dreams. I always want to be the best. If a subject teacher tells me that the whole class is perfect, except that Little Yang speaks at will, I will immediately feel uncomfortable, as if a needle were sticking to my skin. I’ve been controlled by a bad mood every day. Even my students told their parents, ‘Mrs. Liu is unhappy again today, and she is not smiling anymore.’ And my students have stopped smiling, too. I feel very guilty to them.

When Mrs. Liu joined the workshop, she was already 49 years old. Before this class with Little Yang, she had never been the class teacher successively from Grade 1 to Grade 6, a role referred to as “the Big Cycle.” Therefore, when taking over this class five years before, she had hoped to lead this class to a successful conclusion of “the Big Cycle” before retirement.² However, Little Yang had become an ink stain on the idealized picture that she had envisioned for her career.

She boldly and angrily told this story in the workshop, evoking a lot of empathy and a sense of hopelessness from the other teachers.

I’m like walking on a steel thread: If I manage him, I’m unable to; if I don’t manage him, the whole class will be disturbed, and the honor of the class will be harmed. I feel frustrated, upset, and depressed … Every day I feel exhausted both bodily and spiritually.

Mrs. Liu told the participants in the workshop with a sad voice.

At first, Mrs. Liu, like most of the teachers, used external attribution to blame Little Yang for the whole mess. She told the group members angrily, “It's all his fault!” Consequently, the title of the first version of her narrative was “Why does Little Yang always playact?” and that of the second version was “Why must Little Yang always have the final say?”

During the middle of the workshop, spring vacation arrived. Mrs. Liu felt a big relief that she finally did not have to battle with Little Yang every day. She wrote the following in her weekly reflective memo.

I even fantasized that he would transfer to another school next semester. Behind this escape, however, there is also a sense of no reconciliation. If I don’t educate him well, how can I prove myself to be a truly exemplary class teacher?! What has happened to the perfect picture I had aspired to when I took this class? This ink stain on my perfect picture becomes a thorn in my heart that can’t be taken off.

When the pandemic came during the vacation, to her big surprise, Little Yang and his father both changed radically. Little Yang did all his homework on time and helped with housework diligently. Upon invitation from Mrs. Liu, he even made a video of his work for the whole class. His father, unexpectedly, offered a new Internet platform for her class's learning. “I almost jumped out of my bed when I heard this offer. Wow … I just couldn’t believe my ears,” exclaimed Mrs. Liu to the participants.

Now she began to ponder that there must be something wrong with her own way of handling Little Yang. She recalled her behavior toward him, such as shouting loudly at him and scolding him in public. As a result, she changed the title of her narrative successively to “Little Yang disturbed my heart-mind” and “It's all my fault.” She turned the direction of blaming around from outward to inward.

Like most of the teachers in the workshop, she even began to doubt the function of schooling (including her role as a teacher), as Little Yang was performing much better at home. Upon discussion with the facilitators and other teachers, she realized that children like Little Yang were so annoying in school because they wanted to interact with each other but did not know how. As the only child in their family, they became much more obedient when they were locked out at home, with all their parents’ attention focused on them. It was not because schooling (including teachers like her) was useless, but because the school served as a trial place for children to interact with each other.

“Interruption” of the core reflection

At one consultation conference later in the workshop, Facilitator Xu, a university teacher educator, asked Mrs. Liu why she was so bothered by Little Yang's misconduct. Mrs. Liu looked rather surprised at this question and explained with a loud voice,

As an exemplary class teacher, I’ve been expected to solve all the problems by myself. The fact that there's such a low-performing and trouble-making student as Little Yang in my class indicates I’m not as successful as expected by the public … My feelings are wrapped in a cocoon, and my inner heart is shouting: It must be perfect. I want the most perfect picture!

After Mrs. Liu expressed her strong emotions, Facilitator Xu asked her, “What is your belief about the role of an exemplary class teacher?” Mrs. Liu replied immediately, “To manage everything well in class, to make all the students and their parents satisfied, and to set a good example for the other class teachers in the school and district.” She further added that she considered herself a very conscientious class teacher, willing to devote herself to her students and communicate with their parents.

Facilitator Xu probed further, asking if the high standards revealed in her belief in and her identity as an exemplary class teacher were possible to materialize. “Considering the case of Little Yang, if an exemplary teacher happened to encounter a naughty boy like him, how could she/he fulfill all the roles and expectations you’ve in mind?” Now Facilitator Xu was helping Mrs. Liu realize that, given the complicated case of Little Yang in her environment, there might be incongruities between her ineffective behaviors toward Little Yang, her belief in the high standards set by the public, and her identity tied to the perfect image of an exemplary class teacher.

At this, Mrs. Liu looked puzzled, and pondered for a while, before acknowledging the mismatches pointed out by Facilitator Xu. She realized that she could not possibly change Little Yang to a “normal” (let alone “perfect”) student according to her current standards. Although she wished to meet the expectations of her peers, who even coined the term “Spirits of Model Liu” to represent her outstanding achievement, it was obvious that the standards were too high to actualize.

When explaining how she had internalized such high standards, Mrs. Liu recalled her personal struggle all the way from a small village to this urban school in Beijing. In her early childhood, she had seen her parents working in the field with their faces downward to the earth and their backs upward to the sky. She owed it to herself to change her own fate by studying and working hard. Now she had won so many awards and so many people were looking up to her that she could not afford to fail in any case.

Mrs. Liu's acceptance of the high standards of the exemplary teacher was also related to her mission in life. During one meeting in the workshop, Facilitator Xu asked her what she aspired to do most in her life. She replied rather firmly, “To be a class teacher all my life, to be a good teacher in the classroom.” Upon being requested, she explained why,

Being a class teacher is very happy because I have a small world of my own. I can manage it all by myself. This class belongs to me, and I have a sense of belonging as if managing a family. Children are rather simple and pure. I can implement my ideas and enjoy seeing them change and grow. It's very happy.

It was obvious that Mrs. Liu's commitment to the high standards of an exemplary class teacher was closely tied to her emotional needs for a sense of belonging, control, and achievement.

Facilitator Xu then invited her to explore whether she might have been “hijacked” by the moral expectations associated with her belief, and self-identity as an exemplary class teacher. It seemed that these expectations had made her believe that she had to be responsible for all things that had happened in her work, despite the irrationality of this self-imposed demand.

Mrs. Liu acknowledged that being an exemplary teacher had become a burden on her.

For many years, I’ve been bound up by this tight ‘iron headband’ (jin gu zhou 紧箍咒 a magic formula) so tightly that I can’t breathe freely. I have to keep high spirits all the time. Under this spotlight, my sense of vanity is satisfied to a great degree, but I have to control whatever I say or do in order to meet the image of a role model. As time goes by, the pressure becomes bigger and bigger, my inner heart becomes weaker and weaker, and my outer appearance becomes stiffer and stiffer.

At this point, Facilitator Xu introduced the theory of Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological systems, which explains how human actions were situated in specific contexts and impacted by four ecological systems: micro, meso, macro, and outer. Exerting different influences, the microsystem involves the actors themselves, the mesosystem concerns the actors’ families and workmates whom they meet every day, the macrosystem refers to the communities and social institutions, and the outer system contains the law, the state, values, and the culture of the society.

With this theoretical lens, Mrs. Liu suddenly saw the complexity of her battle with Little Yang and his parents. Many invisible forces were influencing her to act aggressively, such as her personal struggle for social mobility, the collegial tension between her and Little Yang's father in the education bureau, the severe examination system to rank students and teachers, the high expectations of society for role models, and the management strategy of local governments to boost the morale of teachers, to name only a few. All these forces were like a tight “iron headband” on her head that made her unable to think or move in her own way. In one of the class exercises, she made a big diagram with all the forces allocated in each of the four systems and saw the whole picture with complex relationships more clearly.

Impact of the core reflection

With systemic reflection guided by Facilitator Xu, Mrs. Liu began to question her beliefs and identity as an exemplary class teacher. She still performed her daily duties conscientiously but became more relaxed with her standards. Instead of demanding perfect performance from her students and herself, she now treated them and herself with more empathy and compassion.

On September 1, 2020, the new semester began after the pandemic. Mrs. Liu asked her students to sit in groups at will. Little Yang looked around for a while and did not find any classmates to form into a group. Mrs. Liu smiled at him with encouragement, and he finally found a few classmates. This time he sat in the middle of the classroom, rather than the usual front seat especially arranged for him before as a naughty student. “He looked around, I gave him a smile, and he returned a smile with his mouth open. Now I knew that the change after the pandemic was not from him, but from myself,” Mrs. Liu wrote in her narrative. In order to increase his sense of self-value, Mrs. Liu assigned Little Yang as team leader to take the class to leave school each afternoon. When she saw Little Yang proudly holding the plate of the class in front of the other students, she realized that she was on the right track.

At the end of the workshop, Mrs. Liu finalized the title of her narrative as “An ink stain on a perfect picture: Self-untying (zi wo song bang 自我松绑) of a senior class teacher.” The native concept of “self-untying” indicated that Mrs. Liu's learning had entered the stage of “schema” (Korthagen & Lagerwerf, 2001, p. 420).³ She had found a concept to express her mentality, rather than being caught up in her gestalt. She had transformed from a puppet tied by an “iron headband” to a person thriving to be liberated through self-empowerment.

Four years later in 2024, when we interviewed Mrs. Liu about the impact of the workshop, she told us that in the past she had been too harsh with Little Yang. “My belief was I must change him according to my standards. As a result, the more I wanted to change him, the more distant our psychological distance became.” She compared herself to a hen, strenuously taking care of a group of little chickens. Now she became “much wiser in my way of loving my students,” by encouraging them to take initiatives of their own. In the past, she had been so nervous about the safety of her students that she would stay in the classroom all the time. Now even if she left the school for a week, nothing would happen to her students. “Now class management is so easy for me, like a small plate of dish (xiao cai yi die 小菜一碟),” Mrs. Liu laughed open-heartedly.

Regarding the change in her mindset, Mrs. Liu said that, in the past, she had been very stubborn, sticking to her habitual, simplified linear attribution about Little Yang's case. Now she changed to systematic ecological thinking. “I have to admit I have my own limitations, and I can’t help every student in everything. I’ll relax myself and do as much as I can,” Mrs. Liu told us in the interview. Analyzing her mindset at this stage, we found that she had entered the realm of theories with a small “t.” Her theory could be summed up like this: If an exemplary class teacher hopes to facilitate the learning of others, she/he must be realistic, empathic, and compassionate to her/himself.

Another change in Mrs. Liu's role as an exemplary class teacher was to do research more systematically. In the past, she had been busy taking care of her students and parents, as well as coaching young class teachers. Now thanks to the benefits from the core reflection, she spent more time and energy doing research. Recently she formed a research team with her colleagues to do a project on how to arrange student activities during breaks so that students could play with interest in a safe environment. She also planned to conduct research on her own rich experiences as a class teacher over the past 35 years.

An intermediate summary of Mrs. Liu’s case

This case aimed to reveal how Facilitator Xu assisted Mrs. Liu through core reflection to change her firm belief in and over-identification with the exemplary class teacher. Mrs. Liu used to unquestioningly accept the high standards for this role and attempted to avoid any deviance from them. Laden with inhuman moral expectations, these standards disregarded her personal feelings and emotions as well as her needs and wants.

Through Facilitator Xu's guided core reflection on the inconsistencies between her doing, knowing, feeling, and aspiring as well as the environment, Mrs. Liu realized that these standards were too unrealistic to achieve. Facilitator Xu assisted her in linking the theory of ecological systems with her practice of taking all responsibilities on her own shoulders. The link made her realize that things did not depend on her alone, but were moderated by various factors in the ecological systems. She began to see the symbolic meanings of the honorary title of the exemplary teacher in the eyes of the governments and the public as well as students and their parents. Once aware of the complexity of this entire phenomenon, she decided not to accept it by relieving herself from the moral burdens of the high demands.

As for Little Yang's misconduct, Mrs. Liu initially blamed him as “all his fault” through external attribution and then shifted to self-blame as “all my fault” through introspective criticism. Finally, she came to understand the broader context, seeing the complexity of the “trouble” within multi-layered ecological systems. She took off the morality-laden “iron headband” eventually and became a more humanistic teacher as a person.

In the meanwhile, the Chinese cultural principle of practical reasoning reminded her that while making judgments about her duties and obligations, she should take specific contexts into account, rather than sticking to a standard rigidly. The Doctrine of the Mean further guided her to take a moderate stance, not going to extremes. As a result, she obtained a systemic view of the relationships between her environment, doing, knowing, feeling, and aspiring, and became more empathetic and compassionate not only to her students but also to herself.

The above case showed that the facilitator-guided core reflection was effective in meeting the needs of the teacher's feelings and motivation as well as understanding the meanings of her storied experience. By focusing core reflection on her beliefs, identity, and mission, Mrs. Liu became more aware of the gap between her knowledge about education, her practice, and her existence as a person. The core reflection also awakened and enhanced her core qualities of empathy and compassion. As a result, Mrs. Liu gained more determination, confidence, and capacity in dealing with complex dilemmas in her work, and lived a more fulfilled professional life (Table 1).

Table 1.

Components of the teacher's learning in core reflection.

Focus of reflection	Layers of reflection	Chinese cultural resources	Practice	Theory	Core qualities	Impact of holistic learning
belief, identity, mission	five layers	practical reasoning, Doctrine of the Mean	blaming the boy and herself	ecological systems	empathy, compassion	embracing her students and herself whole-heartedly

The mechanisms that enabled Mrs. Liu's holistic learning in the workshop can be summed up as follows. First, Facilitator Xu prompted Mrs. Liu to realize the incongruities between the five layers of her professional work by asking soul-searching questions. Second, Facilitator Xu introduced relevant theories to evoke Mrs. Liu's practical reasoning on her own irrational practices. Third, in the facilitator-guided core reflection, Mrs. Liu's core qualities of empathy and compassion were aroused to overcome her fear of face-losing and to come up with action strategies abiding by the Doctrine of the Mean.

This process of the teachers’ holistic learning can be simplified as follows: 1) identifying the trouble, 2) finding and correcting the discrepancies between the five layers, 3) becoming aware of the internal obstacles through practical reasoning, 4) evoking and strengthening the teacher's core qualities, 5) forming action plans through the Doctrine of the Mean. As a “knowledgeable other,” Facilitator Xu played the indispensable role of a collaborative partner, providing emotional support and theoretical guidance throughout the process.

Discussion: How is teachers’ holistic learning possible?

The above case study illustrates how a class teacher's holistic learning took place in a narrative action research workshop in China. Now what is worthy of exploring in the discussion is: What is necessary to initiate and sustain this kind of holistic teacher learning?

The teachers’ need for problem-solving

First of all, the teachers encountered many problems in their work that they could not solve all by themselves. They needed to talk about the problems, but the culture of most Chinese schools did not allow public exposure of teachers’ incompetence or vulnerability. The narrative action workshop provided such a platform.

Only complaining to each other, however, would not solve the problem. The facilitators’ assistance was necessary. If the facilitators only provided theoretical knowledge or their own suggestions, it would not help either, because the subjectiveness of the teachers would not emerge. In this workshop, the facilitators adopted a “pedagogy of interruption” (Biesta, 2018). The teachers were encouraged to struggle first by tapping into their own experiences, questioning their presuppositions, trying out different strategies, and coming up with their own solutions. Although the facilitators provided relevant literature and joined in the teachers’ discussions, they never gave absolute opinions or suggestions.

If the teachers were left out all by themselves, they may process information rapidly with their own gestalt, unable to come up with schemas (concepts) or theories (even if with a small “t”) so as to develop a higher level of gestalt later on (Korthagen, 2017, p. 390). In this workshop, the facilitators adapted structured core reflection to help the teachers realize and rectify the inconsistencies between different layers of the modified onion model. The facilitators also provided “expert theories” for the teachers to connect with Chinese cultural resources such as the ecological systems with practical reasoning and the Doctrine of the Mean. In the end, Mrs. Liu developed a self-liberating concept “self-untying,” which led to her theory with a small “t.”

The core reflection was welcomed by the teachers in the workshop also because it met their needs for feelings and wants, such as respect, trust, a sense of belonging, and support. In many top-down reforms in China, some teachers refused to change, not because they did not know the importance of change, or how to change, but because they did not like some of the new terms, especially those from the West, or because they had no personal needs for change.

Inspirational trust as a psychological environment

The above case showed that the constructive dialogues in the workshop played a vital role in facilitating the teacher to fill in the triangular gap between theory, practice, and person. The possibility of conducting such effective dialogues relied on a trustful relationship between the facilitators and the teachers. In the workshop, the two parties had already built a safe environment with all kinds of activities such as warmups, group work, WeChat talks, and dining. The facilitators would deliberately expose their own ignorance and vulnerability, and invite the teachers to share their experiences and ideas. Therefore, the facilitators could ask “soul-searching” questions to the teachers directly, and the teachers would answer the questions frankly and thoughtfully.

Interestingly, the participants of the workshop named this relationship “inspirational trust,” because it inspired a sense of trust not only in themselves and those they trusted but also in others throughout the chain of their contacts (Chen, 2022). For example, if the teachers were trusted by the facilitators, they would trust not only themselves and the facilitators but also their students. This was because they had internalized the capacity to trust others when they gained confidence in themselves through the trust from people in the upper position of the social hierarchy.

In our later interviews with Mrs. Liu, she told us that her mindset change would not have happened all by herself. It needed the encouragement of the facilitators and the enlightenment of the other teachers. As Korthagen (2017, p. 399) rightly pointed out, “Communities of learners provided the safety to bring one's real concerns and feelings. If the community functions well, genuine attention will be given to these affective and motivational aspects in the person. Only then can effective learning take place.”

The term “inspirational trust” is typical of Chinese culture, with deep human emotions and strong moral obligations. In the workshop, when some teachers were too busy to finish their homework on time, the facilitators would try their best to push them. If the facilitators pushed many times and the teachers still could not finish their work, the teachers would feel sorry, obliged, and even ashamed toward the facilitators. In the meanwhile, they were also aware that the facilitators kept pushing them because they trusted their ability to do the work. If the facilitators stopped pushing them, this meant that they had already given up their trust in the teachers. This was the last thing that the teachers wanted to see.

Inspirational trust can also help fill in the gap between practice, theory, and person in the core reflection because it is not only a kind of feeling that humans need but also a mental state to which humans aspire. Teacher learning in the past mostly focused on cognition, ignoring feelings and needs such as trust. Mastery of knowledge and skills stays at the function of qualification in education, and effective communication stays at the function of socialization in education. Only giving out oneself and responding to the call of the other brings out the function of subjectiveness in education (Biesta, 2018).

Viewed from the onion model, inspirational trust could also be regarded as part of the environment for the teachers. This trust created a sense of safety, equality, and care so that the teachers had a psychological environment conducive to their learning. They could concentrate on the alignment between the multi-layers of their learning.

Morality-oriented core qualities

The third factor that may have initiated and sustained the teachers’ holistic learning was that the core qualities evoked in the teachers had a moral orientation, which inspired their sense of loftiness for the teaching profession. While Mrs. Liu's core qualities were empathy and compassion, those of the other teachers in our study were similar with a strong moral orientation, such as appreciation, love, and care.

It is interesting to find that the core qualities exhibited by these Chinese teachers were somewhat different from those found by Korthagen (2017) and his team, such as courage, resilience, attention, and humor. The core qualities of Chinese teachers were more in the realm of moral conduct with a conscience orientation, while those in Korthagen's research seem more neutral, with less moral connotation.

A possible explanation for this difference is that the Chinese traditional principles abide by a relational epistemology, which concerns ethical and moral dimensions of human conduct for societal harmony. Less reliant on rationality or logic compared to Western theories, the Doctrine of the Mean and practical reasoning both emphasize the importance of considering specific situations with cautious empathy and making decisions with prudent care. The concept of reflection (or rather introspection) has an extremely strong moral requirement, indicating that one should examine one's conduct closely many times a day to see if it fits the moral standards of society.

In the Chinese language, the word “knowing” (zhi 知) also has a strong moral meaning. It is not so much about cognition as about moral conscience (liang zhi 良知), which is linked with the good of Heaven and Earth. Thus, one does not need to go out to seek knowledge. Through reflection (introspection) on one's inner heart-mind, one can find the common good shared by Heaven, Earth, and humans, and bring this good out in practice. With this cultural context, we may understand why the Chinese teachers in our study were so concerned with the moral requirements of society. In this sense, Chinese teachers may be more in need of holistic learning and sensitivity to their feelings and wants than their Western counterparts.

The fact that most of the teachers in our study were outstanding class teachers may further explain the difference between their core qualities and those of the Western teachers. Generally, class teachers were especially concerned about their students’ well-being. They had to take care of everything for their students, not only their study but also their discipline, health, and moral conduct. Therefore, empathy, compassion, appreciation, love, and care stood out as their core qualities in their core reflection.

The awareness of the Chinese teachers’ morally oriented core qualities may strengthen the teachers’ aspiration for the loftiness of the teaching profession. As a result, they may also pay attention to their students’ core qualities, and try to mobilize them in school and their future lives. In today's world, teachers’ work has been degraded by the meritocracy favored by neoliberalism, the new alienation and involution in the speedy society, and the ever-increasing consumerism in society. Commercialization of education, instrumental treatment of teachers, and severe conflicts between school and family have made many teachers lose confidence in their work. Fortunately, as a Chinese popular saying goes “Teaching is conscience work,” many Chinese teachers still stick to the doctrine: “Whatever I do, I must live up to my conscience.” Aware of the moral orientation of their core qualities, the teachers may be inspired to view teaching not just as a means of livelihood but more as a calling worthy of pursuing all their lives.

Concluding remarks

To sum up, this study revealed how teachers’ holistic learning took place in a narrative action workshop by way of the facilitator's guided core reflection with Chinese cultural resources. By modifying Korthagen's onion model, we explored how the case teacher improved the alignment between the five layers of environment, doing, knowing, feeling, and aspiring. The core qualities inspired by the core reflection such as empathy and compassion carried strong Chinese cultural features. In this sense, this study not only told a Chinese story based on a modified Western model but also provided a holistic learning approach with native Chinese characteristics. The case analysis of the teacher with our innovative framework has international implications for other educational systems in the world with similar cultural contexts.

The close and long-term collaboration between the facilitators and the teachers in the workshop also indicates that teacher learning needs to have individualized guidance for an extended period of time. It should start bottom-up from who the learner is so that the learner will gain autonomy and self-efficacy (Korthagen, 2017, p. 400).

For future research, a bigger sample can be employed to increase the richness, density, and generalizability of the findings. More inquiry can be made about the dynamic mechanisms of core reflection as mediation between the facilitators and the teachers to narrow the gap between theory, practice, and person. A comparative study of this holistic approach between different cultures can be illuminative to see whether and how cultural beliefs, identity, and mission about teachers and teaching work in teacher education programs.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I want to thank the case teacher and all the participants of the workshop for generously providing the data for my study. My acknowledgments also go to the anonymous reviewers, who have given very helpful comments for the revision of my paper. In addition, I hope to thank Professor Shuangye Chen for inviting me to organize this Special Issue.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical statement

Informed consent was obtained from all the participants, and all the names in this paper were anonymous.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Xiangming Chen

Notes

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