The purpose of this paper is to explore how international educational policy embedded in the structure and content of curriculum transforms into certain patterns in classroom teaching. The following two research questions are formulated: How can classroom discourse be understood as part of a wider context of international education policy codified through national and classroom curriculum? How does international policy of standards-based curriculum influence teaching repertoires? The version of teaching that emerges in this study, interpreted in a broader context of an international standards movement, can best be defined as directed exploration based on the teacher’s role as an explorer of what the students know, think and understand in relation to the acquisition of knowledge prescribed in the curriculum’s knowledge requirements.