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

a community ofpractice are sufficiently alert and receptive and are in fact aware ofthe
body of knowledge that they need to acquire. TEMS teachers, however, came together
because they had little or no content knowledge ofthe EMS learning area and the kinds
ofknowledge that was needed. The question as to whether a teacher learning community
has the potential to develop content knowledge without the input ofan outside 'expert' is
an issue on which Wenger's framework is silent. In the TEMS community, without an
'expert' input, the community's resources would have been limited to pedagogic
knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge based on weak understandings ofcontent
knowledge in the EMS learning area. This has implications for the development ofthe
community, as it would have impacted on the potential stage and the coalescing stage. In
the potential stage, demonstrating value ofcommunity membership would have depended
on it showing potential to develop disciplinary knowledge. In the coalescing stage, a key
issue was concerned with discovering specifically what knowledge should be shared and
how this is to be done. The absence ofthe input ofan outside expert would have
weakened the community's ability to sustain its development as this issue would have
presented a challenge to community members who were ignorant ofthe kind of
knowledge that was relevant to the EMS learning area. Furthermore, in a community of
practice where weak understandings ofa discipline's core exists, misconceptions and
inaccuracies are likely to be perpetuated.
In a country like South Africa, where race, class and gender inequalities still prevail,
Wenger's model offers limited insights into understanding how learning may occur
differently for different members ofa community ofpractice. In a teacher learning
community in South Africa, members may hail from vastly different resource contexts
even within a short radius ofa kilometre and may thus face peculiar forms ofinequality
and disadvantage. Such differences may create barriers to learning as the form and nature
ofthe learning that is to take place is decided by a core group ofpowerful and influential
members. The model is lacking in its ability to understand the ways in which
communities could disempower members. An analysis ofthe influence ofsocial and
economic issues on learning presents a challenge.
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