Teachers as Engineers of Learning or Ambassadors of Intellectual Disciplines : How to Construct a Knowledge Base for 'Professional' Teachers?

Departing from the complexities surrounding any understanding of the concepts of 'teaching' and 'professionalism' and their possible interconnectedness, this paper is intended to explore who we may try to make sense of what is to constitute a knowledge base for teaching as a profession. Is it possible to overcome the seemingly persistent divide between basing teacher professionalism on some kind of pedagogical technology or in the academic traditions of already existing subject disciplines? How are we to account for the ethical and relational dimensions of teaching in relation to the rather instrumental way that teacher professionalism is constituted within contemporary PISA-driven educational policymaking? Or should we, perhaps, give up on the idea of teachers as professionals all together