ABSTRACT
This chapter narrates the stories of the experiences of early career teacher leavers who left teaching in their first five years. Stories to live by, a narrative conception of identity, “speaks to the nexus of teachers’ personal practical knowledge and the landscapes, in and out of schools, past and present, on which teachers live and work”. Stories to live by are “shaped by such matters as secret teacher stories, sacred stories of schooling, and teachers’ cover stories”. This chapter draws explicit attention to the interconnectedness of the personal and professional knowledge landscapes upon which individuals compose their lives, and on how teachers’ imagined identities, their imagined stories to live by, shaped their experiences in ways that allowed them to stay in, or leave, teaching in schools. The all-encompassing nature of the teaching profession stems back to the one room school house where the teacher lived, slept, and taught; the personal life given up for the good of the vocation.
