This article highlights two key problems of practice the author faced as the instructor of an elementary literacy methods class for Teach for America corps members in a large, northeastern city during an era characterized by strict state and district control: the deficit perspectives the corps members held of their students and the lack of autonomy they experienced as educators. The author illustrates how each of these issues can be traced to the institutions that socialized the corps members into the profession and then draws on practitioner inquiry methodology to describe two possible pedagogical responses. The author concludes by discussing the implications of this work with particular attention to (1) how various institutions frame teaching and learning, (2) the role of methods courses in interrupting these frames, and (3) the pedagogical possibilities inherent in doing so for both students and teachers.