So much emphasis is placed these days on measuring the performance of pupils that it is difficult to imagine the social space of the classroom being used for any other purpose. But our intention in this essay is not to succumb to pessimism about the surveillance imposed by standards-based reforms. Such bleak determinism can be challenged by examples of everyday classroom interactions that refuse to be contained by the instrumental rationalism embedded in those reforms. Yet educators still need to develop a capacity to learn from those moments in order to enact a 'praxis' that provides a counterpoint to the way such reforms construct the subjectivities of pupils and their teachers. To this end, we explore the notion of 'praxis', focusing on the way early career English teachers learn from experience through writing nuanced accounts of how children and adolescents use language which challenge the reified knowledge underpinning standards-based reforms.