the impact of these variations on their effectiveness. Our interpretations of teachers’
professional learning and development trajectories and identification of the nature
of their professional lives over time thus were primarily concerned with the impact
of these on their commitment and well-being in the particularities of the social,
political and personal environments in which they lived and worked.
For the purpose of this chapter, short stories of one beginning teacher, one
middle career teacher and one veteran teacher have been selected in order to
illustrate their remembered experiences of peaks and troughs in their professional
lives and the ways in which various personal, professional and workplace-related
factors had supported or hindered their commitment to learn and develop and their
capacity to teach to their best.
3.4 Learning to Build Identity in Classrooms and Schools
in the First 7 Years: Schools Matter
On entry, most teachers have a strong sense of vocation (Day et al. 2007 ; Hansen
1995 ), and at the beginning of their professional lives their work is underpinned by
their intrinsic motivation and emotional commitment to provide the best service for
their students. Like those in other human services professions, teachers’emotional
commitment is an important element of their ability to teach to their best and is
associated with an ethic of care for the well-being of their students. For new
teachers especially, support in managing the emotional unpredictability of class-
room teaching and learning is as important as support in developing their peda-
gogical and classroom management skills; and the availability, extent and
appropriateness of such support in the workplace are likely to be key influencing
factors in retaining their commitment to the school and to their decisions about
remaining in the profession over the long term.
Compared with their more experienced colleagues, beginning teachers’chal-
lenges primarily stem from two distinct but interrelated realities: one is to develop a
sense of professional self in their interactions with their colleagues, pupils and
parents; and the other is to develop a sense of belonging during their socialisation
into the school community and the profession. As a result, many new teachers often
find themselves immersed in complex social relations and sophisticated profes-
sional roles inherent within established school communities (Lee et al. 1993 ), whilst
at the same timefighting to make sense of their own experiences and understand
what it means to be a teacher.
Over the last two decades there has been ample evidence in the literature which
shows that new teachers are more likely to stay in teaching and also develop greater
commitment to teaching if their school organisations provide them with access to
intensive mentoring and professional learning opportunities and through these, help
them to focus on tasks that improve their teaching competence and performance
efficacy. The quality of professional cultures in schools is, therefore, central in
40 Q. Gu