The teacher educator is always also a teacher, and as a role model may have an important impact on student teachers’ views on teaching. However, what is the impact of these teacher educator’s own role models on their teaching views and practices? Do teacher educators simply imitate the positive role models and reject the bad? It is already clear that teachers and teacher educators learn more than how to play a role from their role models. Becoming a teacher or a teacher educator is a long‐term process of developing a professional identity, with role models being just one of the contributing factors. This study of 13 teacher educators addresses the impact of schoolteacher role models as part of the socialisation process of becoming a teacher.