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

was three kilometres away from the school. During the intervals, children generally sat
along the corridors or played games on a dusty open area in front oftheir classrooms.
This school serviced a very poor community. Almost all the pupils came from homes that
were impoverished. Most families in the area struggled to meet their most basic
requirements in terms of food. For this reason, the school had succeeded in securing
sponsorship that enabled it to provide a meal to its pupils everyday (usually soup and
bread). Teachers were elected to a committee that was responsible for ensuring that the
meal for each day was ready on time. Ben mentioned that because ofthe feeding scheme,
the school had excellent pupil attendance. The school also provided for all the basic
stationery requirements ofits pupils.
At the start ofthe TEMS project, Pecan Primary did not have a functioning library. It had
no library furniture and fittings, but it did have about thirty books. A committee had been
set up to put in place plans to develop a library. Beth and Ben, two ofthe TEMS teachers,
were playing leading roles in setting up the new library. A classroom was allocated for
this purpose. With the books that I had secured for the school, and donations from other
institutions, the first functional library in the school's thirty-year history started in August
2003.
6.3.5 Teachers' perceptions of their changing EMS practices: How had Ben
experienced change?
Ben reflected on his own school career and regarded the teachers who had taught him as
really good. As mentioned earlier, he maintained that corporal punishment meted out to
him had made him a better person. Ben adopted a similar approach to his teaching,
stating that he also used corporal punishment in his teaching. He presented himself as an
authoritarian teacher and a strong disciplinarian. His comment about corporal punishment
and Black African children presented a chilling reminder that draconian punitive
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