This qualitative study focuses on school-based learning teams. Based on interviews with 13 participants at two elementary schools, it investigates the learning team structure's role in affecting change. This inquiry also includes elements of self-study: an analysis of how learning teams contribute to my understanding of teaching as an intellectual profession, and how this understanding helps me (and potentially others) to contextualize my (their) decision to become a teacher. The study's conceptual framework centers on the following concepts: teachers as intellectuals; inquiry; collegiality; shared decision-making. Three case studies are presented, compared, and interpreted through the lens of the conceptual framework. Key learnings point to the possibilities that learning teams offer, in terms of how teachers conceive of and approach their work. Through the potential roles of collaboration and the openness to others' ideas, learning teams become a crucible in which essential aspects of teaching as an intellectual profession play out.