In order to develop an in-depth understanding and meaning of the preconceptions of teaching and learning that pre-service teachers hold, it is important that one should also focus on how these views were constructed and played out in different socio-cultural contexts prior to teacher education. This is particularly significant in the education of a heterogeneous and a culturally diverse population of pre-service teachers, such as exists in Papua New Guinea. The case study approach was employed in this study to enable the author to focus and develop an in-depth understanding of the essences of Papua New Guinean secondary school pre-service teachers' lived experiences of teaching and learning in both cultural and religious contexts. It enabled the author to also make sense of how cultural and religious experiences interact, define and fashion pre-service teachers' meanings, perceptions and realities of teaching, learning, a teacher's role(s), students as learners, and knowledge from pre-service teachers' emic perspectives.