“If You Don't Know Where You Are Going, Any Path Will Do”: The Role of Teachers' Visions in Teachers' Career Paths

Drawing upon data from case studies of four teachers conducted over the course of eight years, this research examines the role that teachers' visions—their images of ideal classroom practice—play in teachers' career paths. This paper demonstrates the ways in which teachers' decisions to leave schools were often made for personal reasons, while their decisions to move to a new school were made for pedagogical ones related to teaching aims and goals. The author argues that we should not try to keep teachers from leaving, but rather, enable them to continue choosing teaching again.