Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

Beth: Ok, it's about economy and it's about our needs and our wants and how to also
to learn to live within our means, how to budget, make budgets and so forth.
This is what I can say.
In response to how EMS should be taught and how pupils best learnt EMS, teachers
responses included: 'do more practical stuff; 'get them to do things'; 'work in groups'
'hands on'; 'It's not like I talk; you listen type ofthing' and 'you want them to cut
things'. Teachers associated EMS with the need to do and make things. This could be
explained by teachers' perceptions that the learning area was concerned with
entrepreneurship and the need to make and sell things.
In response to the usefulness ofthe workshops run by the Department ofEducation,
teachers expressed mixed sentiments that ranged from not having benefited at all to being
quite appreciative ofhaving received at least some information, even ifit had been from
only one workshop.
Reflecting on the transcripts above, it is clear that teachers' understandings and
conceptions ofthe EMS learning area were indeed very weak. When 'pushed' for a
perspective on what the EMS learning area was about, all teachers displayed distinctively
narrow and limited conceptions ofthe learning area. Their everyday understandings of
EMS concepts that they referred to were also suspect. Attempts at describing the learning
area and the outcomes associated with it, revealed very weak understandings thereof. In
attempting to categorise teachers' understandings and conceptions, all teachers, except
John could be categorised as having weak understandings and conceptions ofthe EMS
learning area. John, as described in Chapter Five, was able to draw on his everyday or lay
understandings ofEMS, albeit in a limited way. Teachers' poor knowledge ofthe EMS
learning area can be attributed to the fact that none ofthem had any formal or informal
qualification in any commerce related discipline. Secondly, their negative experiences
with the learning area and their negative perceptions ofC2005 and its complex jargon
were telling factors that hindered their access to the curriculum policy documents.
Thirdly, the lack ofsupport from the Department ofEducation meant that professional
development in the EMS learning area was severely lacking. In terms oftheir
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