This paper is an exhibition of the teacher. More in particular it wants to show the teacher as a public figure. As we will clarify in the first part of the paper, the teacher is not a public figure because of her serving society in terms of its demands and expectations.Of course, being a teacher is a demanding job, but as we will argue the demands ‘upon’ the teacher are inherent to the act of teaching itself. It is not the demands of a ‘public’ that the teacher has to serve (and obey), ranging from the interests of the economy and social (interest) groups to the personal fulfillments needs of individuals but, so we will argue, the demands which belong to the activity of teaching itself. Consequently, the ‘public teacher’ in our understanding) is not a ‘reflective practitioner’ (see Schön, 1983) whose teaching actions are the result of a reflection based on (professional) (self-)knowledge but someone who acts out of love. This figure is not someone who can be identified by her qualities, but who shows the experience of the act of teaching. So, instead of proposing an idea of the teacher, we seek to ‘investigate’ the teacher in such a way as to offer readers the experience of teaching itself – that is, an immediate communication or sharing of the idea of the teacher. In this way, the teacher cannot be reduced to ‘this’ or ‘that’ but is shown as she always matters (Agamben, 2009).  In other words, the teacher is presented in a single way or as a ‘character actor’ to use a notion of the philosopher Thomas Wall (Wall, 1999). Character actors in contrast to those (professional) actors with ‘star qualities’ remain indefinable; they are nothing other than their style and mannerism. It is this ‘third’ person, such as Edgar for instance in Iris Murdoch’s novel The Sacred and the profane love, who does not belong to any class, but has the ability to be present in the present. Because this figure cannot be identified or appropriated by any concept(s), it is a public figure understood as at the disposal of someone but no one in particular. From this perspective, we will argue that the teacher as a public figure is nothing else than her character, style and manner. The teacher is, as we will conclude, not someone who serves the public by means of acquiring and providing information (‘expertise’) but by means of her being a character actor. The teacher as a public figure is an articulation of the self, this is the self as a character. A (beautiful) character can only be communicated by ‘the look’. Alternatively: a character is always that what ‘passes us’, it shows itself as an ‘act the présence’ and is therefore not (intellectually) perceptible/observable. Therefore, the teacher as a public figure escapes every ‘observational and academic’ eye.

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