What kinds of teachers are needed for 21st century learners? While there is recognition that curriculum content, classroom practices and learning environments must alter, there is less attention focussed on the teachers' dispositions for negotiating uncertainty. In this paper, the authors turn their attention to the importance of teachers' lives and mindsets to meet current, emerging and future challenges. Using a narrative inquiry approach, they elicit and examine three of these essential qualities: adventure, resilience and creative problem-solving. These characteristics emerge from interviewing a small group of beginning and experienced teachers who were questioning normative practices and exploring possibilities with more responsive ways to teach.