This paper reports on a hermeneutic phenomenological research inquiry which explored ‘lived experiences’ of the teacher–student relationship in teacher education. An essential understanding from this research is that teachers and students experience their relationship as a play that is uncertain and lived beyond the rules of engagement. Teachers who are attuned to this play show phronesis in the way they relate. This research questions instrumental models of teacher education underpinned by a dominant neoliberal ideology. This research calls for the re-educating of teacher educators and teachers towards essential understandings of relationship and the pathic sensibilities associated with being-in-relationship.