Reflecting on the identity of the teaching profession: time for some higher status?

I was an English teacher in secondary schools for the first 10 years of my career, moving next to become the PGCE course leader for English at a large university in Southern England. Over the years I added being MA course leader for an English programme and becoming a head of several education departments. I gradually developed as a researcher, initially very much about the subject of English and its teachers, a theme that continues to fascinate me. I developed a complementary theme about what we mean when we talk about good teaching and especially ‘expert teachers’, this remains a contested idea and term, not least in the teaching profession itself. It is an international phenomenon with many countries developing schemes to identify their best teachers and to keep them working in the classroom and not moving out into management or similar roles. My research has investigated this global development and I have been involved in advising on a number of national and international developments. I have published a considerable number of articles and books about both my themes and in a personal chapter like this one I mention a number of publications because they are part of my identity and my reflections on teaching.