Teaching has always struggled with its identity. Is it a profession? A vocation? Something that people who can't do anything else fall into? A safety net or a career?Is it a walk in the park? All those holidays. Something anyone can do, let's face it, we all went to school.Or is it a complex, challenging, somewhat maligned and misunderstood profession made up of exceptional and perhaps not so exceptional members. How would we know?The Knowing and Caring Profession takes a look behind the rhetoric and rigmarole, to explore education and more specifically the education profession through a variety of lenses.Phil Lambert's approach to education, teaching and the broader profession is at times confronting, challenging and controversial. At its heart, it is an exploration of education by a teacher, a bureaucrat, an academic, a leader and a parent, all rolled in to one.Phil brings a different perspective to many of the complex and challenging facets of education. From curriculum and class sizes to teacher education and student learning outcomes, Phil distils what can be polarising and emotive topics into easy to digest, fascinating and, at times, funny anecdotes and examples for non-educators.Anyone who has even a passing interest or involvement with the education system will gain significant insight and understanding of what is truly at its very core, a knowing and caring profession.