There is the perception among members of the teaching fraternity that the inservice Diploma in Education (DipEd) Programme offered at The University of the West Indies (UWJ), St. Augustine Campus, has little impact on the classroom practices of the graduates. This perception is significant since an important goal of any teacher education programme is to empower teachers to change their behaviours. Meaningful change involves alteration of beliefs, that is, the pedagogical assumptions and theories underpinning the change. The inservice programme at St. Augustine provides opportunities for teachers to critically examine and analyse educational theories in the light of their own beliefs and experiences, the assumption being that such an approach can be an important step in the transformation of their teaching practices.
A review of the literature has revealed that teachers' beliefs do impact on classroom practice, but that there is often conflict between those beliefs and the realities of the classroom. This paper, the result of an exploratory investigation, presents, through their own voices, the perceptions of four science teachers in the DipEd Programme in 1997, and its impact on their own personal theories and beliefs, as well as their classroom practice. The findings are presented as four stories: "Rekindling the Fires"; "Unfulfilled Expec­tations"; "Old Habits Die Hard"; and "Too Little, Too Late". The contrasting views are discussed.