This paper challenges the assumption underlying the symposium’s title: there is, or should be, “a shift from teaching to learning” which has implications for teacher’s work. In our view schooling for all with Bildung as function implies a dialectical relationship of teaching and learning in the basic sense of a contradictory unity. They constitute each other, each following nonetheless it’s own logic: from this point of view, a shift from teaching to learning has no sense. In our paper we illustrate this thesis by giving three hints: 1. A historical hint: we show the implications for teachers work in the conception of the Rousseauist, pedagogical, child centred “from learning to teaching” view of Claparède, one among many New educationalists of the twenties; and in the conception of the Condorcetian, didactical, dialectical teacher/student and learning/teaching relationship view of Vygotski; 2. A theoretical hint: we define what “a high degree of professionalism” for teachers could means in function of new demands on school and of the dialectical teaching/learning relation; 3. An empirical hint: we describe the constrains for transforming teacher’s work analysing what is really taught in first language classrooms in the context of massive child centred reform prescriptions.