Reclaiming the profession: illuminating the invisible work of a teacher educator

The notion of ‘classroom-ready’ teachers has been cast as the fundamental priority of teacher education in Australia. Reports into initial teacher education frequently name school–university partnerships as the key way of achieving this classroom readiness. ‘Classroom ready’ alludes to a professional who can meet certain performance standards that are fixed in time and space; however, working in school–university partnerships frequently requires the teacher educator to live their work in education in ways that are not linear; less a progression from A to B and more of temporal plunge that links past and future into the challenges of ‘Now’, where being and becoming unfold. This chapter considers vignettes that show how these temporalities of personal and professional lives are entwined in the case of Nerrida, a teacher educator. Her stories of becoming trouble the static idea defined by the endpoint of preparing ‘classroom-ready teachers’ and the linear logic of ‘onwards and upwards’ learning, which policymakers see as the way to form professionals. Instead, the chapter shows how professionals such as Nerrida navigate uncertainties and the tangible effects of doubt through their own forms of agency and intentionality.