This article reports results from a study of teacher beliefs among a panel of English and language arts teachers at three universities as the pre-service teachers entered methodological coursework and internships. Using a new assessment tool, the Developmental Instruction Assessment Battery (DIAB), along with a discrete choice task and one-on-one interviews, teachers reported their developing perspectives on (1) competition in the classroom, (2) hierarchies of traditional academic material, and (3) related views on classroom order, engagement, and teacher authority. We contrast these findings to beliefs reported by a sample of mid-career middle school English and language arts teachers in Western Pennsylvania.