A research panel asked to frame the discussion for a new Teaching Quality Standard in Alberta assumes this task requires a paradigm shift away from the status quo efficiency movement. As a member of the panel, the author provides an analysis of paradigm shifts in education and recounts important lessons to be learned. The author challenges the notion that the alternative paradigm posed by an emerging knowledge society provides the best framework to define quality teaching. To accentuate the centrality of relationships, the author offers culture-making as a preferred paradigm where who teachers are is valued as much as what teachers do.