Ideas about what makes a good teacher are important in thinking about educational reform,
and have come into focus recently. These ideas are contested and open to change. The first
part of this paper traces models of the good teacher in Australia from the colonial-era good
servant, through an ideal of the autonomous scholar-teacher, to contemporary lists of
teacher competencies. The second part looks more closely at the incoherent but insistent
way the good teacher is now defined under neoliberal governance by teacher registration …

Abstract Ideas about what makes a good teacher are important in thinking about educational
reform, and have come into focus recently. These ideas are contested and open to change.
The first part of this paper traces models of the good teacher in Australia from the colonial-
era good servant, through an ideal of the autonomous scholarteacher, to contemporary lists
of teacher competencies. The second part looks more closely at the incoherent but insistent
way the good teacher is now defined under neoliberal governance by teacher registration …