“Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones”: Understanding Chinese Minority Teachers’ Transnational and Transitional Experiences

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses on 6 minority teachers who were raised and trained in China and traveled transnationally to the U.S. as non-immigrants on J-1 Visas which allowed them to teach in the U.S. for up to 5 years. The central theme of the chapter is that teaching in a foreign culture is analogous to crossing a river by feeling the stones. The great differences between Chinese and American cultures and educational traditions presented unique challenges to these minority teachers. Such differences, especially those in conflict with their original professional norms, demanded that the minority teachers observe and imitate what other American teachers do, explore and test the new norms in their classrooms, and wrestle with and possibly adjust their habitual pedagogy to better meet the foreign culture’s expectations. As part of a larger study, this present chapter utilizes interview data collected from six Chinese teachers during their first or second year in U.S. public elementary schools. The findings illustrate a number of shared personal and professional challenges encountered by newly-arrived minority teachers in their initial transitions to life and work in the U.S. The challenges include the unfamiliarity with U.S. public schools, inadequate teaching materials, a heavy teaching load, and other teaching-related issues.