Learning to teach has been seen by some as a matter of acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills and by others as more of an initiation of the beginner into a new and complex world (e.g. Eddy 1969). This paper addresses the question of which of these is closer to reality by drawing on evidence, both qualitative and quantitative, from a large scale project on the experience of new teachers in schools in Scotland and England (see EPL Project website). The paper also discusses this evidence in relation to the wider international literature, particularly in relation to emotion, identity and workplace (e.g. Bosma and Kunnen 2001; Hargreaves 1998; Hinchliffe 2004; Illeris 2002). Within a grounded theoretical framework of dimensions of early professional learning, that also draws on the data and the literature, the evidence suggests that the early formative process is one of emotional and relational engagement, with little indication of the cognitive. Other than coming to terms with real difference between children taught, there is little reference to the official standard, for example, to subject-specific or broader aspects of the curriculum (McNally et al 2006; 2008). Looking across the dimensions, a more holistic interpretation is that a new self-as-teacher identity is emerging. Applying Giddens’(1991) concepts of the pure relationship and ontological security to the particular context of the new teacher in the classroom, and Bakhtin’s perspective on the self (Holquist 1990), it is argued that the experience of becoming a teacher is essentially about attaining a state of reciprocal ontological security.

The argument of the paper is based on a combination of empirical work and the literature. Interviews were conducted with over 100 new teachers in Scottish and English schools during their first year of teaching. The interviews were ethnographically influenced (e.g. Spradley 1979) and the full set of transcripts were coded and discussed across the research team, including six practitioners who acted as the interviewers. The method was based on the approach to grounded theory used by Glaser and Strauss (e.g. Glaser 1978), within an overall naturalistic design paradigm (Lincoln & Guba 1985). The main themes emerging from the data analysis – dimensions and domains of learning, identity formation – were further explored in the literature to find where the grounded concepts of the study had a more general theoretical resonance

The paper concludes that the experience of beginners in teaching can be more authentically described as need to reach a state of reciprocal ontological security through emotional and relational dimensions of learning, a mutual relationship in which pupils and their teacher accept, come to know and trust one another. However, although this conclusion is well evidenced, the question of the cognitive is discussed in relation to the official standard, the implicit status and submerged nature of formal knowledge, and also reflexively considered with a view to methodological alternatives. The main thesis is also examined in the light of certain more philosophical perspectives on concepts such as the self, relational development and the complexity of practice, making reference to, for example Bakhtin (in Holquist 1990), Deleuze (1988) and Heidegger (1982).