Beginning with commonplace, empirical accounts of teachers’ motivation, the chapter considers the potency of Lacanian psychoanalysis in approaching the discourses of education that shape the teacher’s self-image. The relations between psychoanalysis, Lacan and teaching are then touched on with some reference to Lacan’s seminars, asking the question of why psychoanalysis is necessary for thinking about education and why it is so commonly disavowed. The philosophical threads of Lacan’s thought are explored in their relation to the orders of education. Lacanian ontology is explored in its relation to the world of education and the specific institution of the school, drawing on the intersecting registers of the Real, Symbolic and Imaginary.