In the present era of accountability, there is a real and justifiable temptation to use collaboration to focus strictly upon instrumental goals that have an immediate impact on classroom practices. However, without some time and reflection devoted to why teachers do what they do, a sustainable culture of collaboration is unlikely to emerge. Based on her experience as an instructor in a graduate program for practicing teachers, the author found that it was dialogue about the tough questions--the perennial problems of education--that sent so many of her own graduate students roaring back into their schools, imagining the possible, and ready to innovate with their students and colleagues. Sustaining change momentum, it seems, has much to do with keeping both hope and urgency alive in their work as teachers. To do so may require only the simple opportunity to connect, through open-ended reflective dialogue, with their own diverse but generally well-intentioned beliefs and understandings about what it means to educate students. (Contains 10 notes.)