Education is fundamentally a practice-oriented endeavor. While both teachers and teacher educators are practitioners within this field, they diverge significantly in their educational responsibilities, cognitive approaches, and practical manifestations. The identity transformation from teacher to teacher educator manifests primarily in three key shifts. (1) Educational responsibility shifts from focusing predominantly on “immediate student development” to encompassing the “long-term educational ecology.” (2) Cognitive approach evolves from “embodied cognition” towards “practical reason.” (3) Practical performance transitions from “skillful coping of teaching situations” to the “integration of value and competence.” This transformation, signifying a move from an “experiential subject” to an “ethical subject,” underscores the profound implications for teacher educators’ professional development. It reflects the very essence of the teacher educator identity. In practice,viewing this role merely as a natural extension of an accomplished teacher’s identity overlooks the qualitative transformation inherent in the reconstruction of their professional identity. The assumption that “a good teacher inherently makes a good teacher educator” constitutes a significant misconception. Therefore, the cultivation of teacher educators must be formally incorporated into the institutional framework of teacher education.