Engagement with practitioners in the Center's work will enable university faculty to develop professionally and improve their programs of teaching and research. X will combine opportunities to acquire new knowledge and skills, with research aimed at creating new knowledge, and the practical application of that knowledge in schools. UCLA scholars must formulate and conduct their research and teaching in ways that reflect the realities of children, educators, schools, and their community contexts. The value of this work must be evident to all of the constituents the university serves. School professionals, in turn, must guide their practice by a process of critical inquiry, reflection, and social responsibility.
X avoids a false separation of content, pedagogy, and contexts for learning.
To better understand their complex relationship and promote reforms that enhance it, Center X places a high value on having education professionals engage in the disciplines they teach, as well as learn about teaching. Writing teachers write, history teachers conduct original inquiries into historical topics, science teachers do scientific investigations. Doing so, they learn how their disciplines create knowledge and better understand the school and classroom contexts that permit teachers and learners to engage in creating discipline-based knowledge. Center X must resist efforts to shape its activities into a traditional control-oriented, bureaucratic organization. Rather it must remain a commitment-driven entity whose structures organize people around important problems, interests, and goals.