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

John: Now I want you to remember why these two fellows had to change the
prices of their products, and later I'm going to come back to them.
In this introduction to the lesson, John drew on pupils' experiences during
entrepreneurship day at the school. Two important economic concepts surfaced in this
introduction, namely, 'competition' and 'seasonal demand' as factors affecting the
demand for a commodity. Later in the lesson, John consolidated these concepts. In the
next part ofthe lesson, John began to engage the pupils on the question ofhow prices
were determined.
John:
Pupil:
John:
Pupil:
John:
Pupil (Ravi):
John:
Pupil:
John:
Pupil:
John: Ja. You have to know what you paid for it before you decide how much you
want to sell it for. So you gotta know the cost price, how much it cost you,
before you can decide the selling price. (Writes these two concepts on the
board). For now, we won't discuss how to calculate the selling price, when we
have Maths, we'll do some calculations and I'll show you how we can use
percentages for this. But let's just leave it there for now. What else must
you think about if you have to make a price for a product?
Pupil (Kreolin): Sir, I think first you must see if anyone wants to buy it first before you buy
Pupil:
John:
Okay class, how do you think these people should have set their price? Yes
. (points).
First you have to see how much you are paying for it.
You mean how much Ravi would have paid for the tops. What did it cost Ravi?
Yes sir.
Okay Ravi, how much did you pay for the tops?
Sir, I think they were about Rl each; my mom bought them.
Okay, can you think of how we could get a good idea of what to charge for
the things we want to sell?
First see what you paid for it sir.
Why do you need to know this?
Sir, if you don't know how much its cost you, how will you know how to sell it,
how much to sell it for?
it yourself sir, otherwise it will be like my pop ups sir.
Yes but sir, how you gonoo know that?
Well, what do you think? How you gonna find out if someone wants your
product?
(Some pupils raise their hands)
Hold on; don't answer just yet. Tell your neighbour the answer and when I
ask you, you will tell me what your neighbour said. Okay quickly now.
(Pupils appeared to be familiar with this kind of exercise before - begin
discussions with each other)
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