ABSTRACT
As you enter your classroom you may wonder about the relevance to your practice of starting with an overview of educational history. The answer is that behaviour and learning do not occur in a vacuum. As a teacher you will be working within a context that reflects some inheritances from history alongside relatively new practices emerging from ongoing innovation and change. Understanding of past developments and priorities, and political, social and economic agendas, is necessary in order to make sense of the current educational challenges in relation to learning and behaviour.
