The professional development of teachers is a key responsibility of governments, schools and teachers themselves. Behaving professionally requires high levels of dedication and commitment, working long hours and accepting the uncertain nature of the task of educating, which often encroaches on personal and family life. It also involves the constant effort to do one’s best and to improve continually, building up personal relationships with students – thus giving priority to their interests and needs – as well as seeking to maintain a friendly rapport with colleagues, parents and other external agents. The complexity of this endeavour and the duty to undertake numerous tasks simultaneously requires high levels of competence in order to respond intelligently to the many demands of a complex, changeable environment.

The present paper attempts to look into the professional development (PD) of physical education (PE) teachers. Its aim is to understand how these teachers’ personal biography, life experiences, training and professional environments have gradually shaped their knowledge and professional capabilities. How does one learn to be a teacher? What have been their sources? How do they value them? Which do they consider more useful? What problems have they come across? How have their worries and needs regarding this knowledge changed over time and what are the next steps to enhance it?

Unquestionably, the answers to the above questions are closely linked to how each idividual teacher interprets the act of learning, to the values behind certain teaching practices, to them making explicit their own doubts, difficulties, uncertainties and weaknesses, as well as to the strategies they deploy to survive and overcome threats. These difficulties in one’s learning – which concern the author of this paper both as a researcher and as a teacher - are connected with the concept of empathy as a central element of the teaching and learning process and with the notion of education as a predominantly subjective and emotive task.

 Ultimately, the inclination to learn more about the professional development of teachers does nothing but hide an interest in learning how to teach, in finding out what makes someone a good teacher. It is very much an introspective and autobiographical endeavour, in as much as the author is himself a teacher and his colleagues are the objects of this study, carried out from an “emic” perspective. This leads him to reformulate fundamentally his preconceived notions on the teaching/learning process,  the relationships with his colleagues, his knowledge and beliefs concerning institutionalised professional development and, in a nutshell, the ethical aspects surrounding the whole process.

The theoretical framework of this study revolves around three axes that help us understand it: teachers’ professionalisation, socialisation and teacher knowledge. These three categories encompass theories, viewpoints and notions on the education and the PD of teachers that help us delimit and frame our study, while also providing strategies to inquire into the field and important methodological references. 

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