In this critically reflective piece, I describe the design of a foundations of education course and my first year teaching experience. I discuss thematic statements of issues that emerged as I came to construct the meaning of my experience and evolving ideas about teaching for public service professions. These included that:

• Questioning is not 'normal' for everyone;
• The experience of classroom safety may be different for student participants than for teacher participants;
• Reflection is a situated responsibility; and
• Assessment and authority interact within the context of learning in a formal classroom.

Discussing these issues helped me in framing teaching for public service as itself a transcendent public act, one that crosses boundaries of time and space and that requires embodied, rather than idealistic, understandings of qualifying to teach.