ABSTRACT
This volume has grown from a conviction that we require more analytical and systematic studies of teachers' lives. Above all the conviction grows from the belief which I will re-state that ‘in understanding something so intensely personal as teaching, it is critical we know about the person the teacher is’. Put this way it seems almost self evident, commonsensical, and so I believe it is, but the fact remains that we still have an underdeveloped literature on the personal, biographical and historical aspects of teaching. Particularly underdeveloped is a literature which locates the teachers' lives within a wider contextual understanding.
