It is conceivable that the present generation of Australian teachers has been engaged in more workplace reform over a longer period of time than any other occupational group. Teachers can recite a near-interminable list of changes to work practices initiated during the 70s and 80s which required revisions of content to be taught, changes in methods of instruction and the introduction of modified patterns of school organisation. Yet the more things change the more they appear the same. The salient features of schools of 20 years ago are salient today - classes of thirty of so students, dominated by teacher talk and student silence, the content prescribed, instructional groups standardised by age, and teachers isolated from colleagues while they teach. Teachers, except for a relatively small band of enthusiasts, are sceptical of claims that there are better way of doing things and are disinclined to take new reform efforts too seriously.