This paper reports research on: the major educational ideas that have shaped New Zealand's educational policies and influenced the content and form of teacher training and early childhood education; the educational ideas that have influenced teachers and former teachers; and how teachers have reacted to the major changes that policymakers have implemented. Data were collected from a literature review and from 150 life-history interviews. The paper focuses on three retired teachers who have been prominent "progressive" educators. These case studies show how each teacher's theories build onto pre-existing educational, political, or social concerns or projects, indicating the importance of the time, form, and context in which educational ideas are encountered. This approach enables exploration of relationships between the educational theories in academic texts and policy documents and the ways individual teachers and others involved in education think and act in their everyday situations. The paper suggests that life-history approaches are assuming increasing popularity in educational research and in teacher education to help combine the everyday and the theoretical dimensions of experience. (Contains 38 references.) (ND)