Career-changers’ ideal teacher images and grounded classroom perspectives

•Career-changers grounded their ideal teacher images in the realities of teaching.•Teaching was more time-consuming, demanding, and complex than they anticipated.•Students' misbehavior and personal needs surprised and challenged them.•Actual teaching added characteristics to their images of ideal teachers.•Colleagues' behavior and attitudes in some schools were unexpected.

Seeking to understand whether career-changers experience the idealism referenced in new teacher literature, two teacher educators conducted a qualitative inquiry employing interview, descriptive writing, and focus group methods. Findings from 13 participants indicate their ideal teachers are caring and student-centered in a grounded, not romanticized, way, are knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and organized yet flexible. Participants found actual teaching more time-consuming, demanding, and complex than anticipated and students' unexpected needs and misbehavior challenging. Past teachers influenced their ideal teacher images and becoming a teacher expanded them. The researchers discuss the findings in light of literature and implications for future practice.