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

They often persevere beyond their usefulness thus creating further problems for which
more survival strategies have to be developed. In his 'parasite' analogy of strategies,
Woods (1979: 146) explains that: "They expand into teaching and around it like a parasite
plant, and eventually in some cases the host may be completely killed off. Like parasite,
ifthey kill offthe host, they are a failure and they must die too; for they stand starkly
revealed for what they are". However, Woods (1980) explains that because strategies are
products ofconstructive and creative activity, they are also 'adaptive'. They are answers
to dilemmas spawned by constraints and contradictions that have their origin in wider
society. Teachers in a rapidly changing environment have constantly to generate new
strategies to deal with new situations that arise.
In an analysis ofthe South African context using the symbolic interactionist construct of
'strategy', Mattson explores how teacher identities are constructed within the tensions of
policy and practice (Mattson 2000). She argues that policy constructs teachers as objects
and that teacher strategies arise within sites ofcontradiction and constraint. These
contradictions and constraints are generated within the wider social structure. Teachers'
'mimetic' strategies become survival strategies. They develop 'unfounded confidence'
(ibid.). Mattson refers to this phenomenon as 'false clarity'. Teachers are stripped of
their sense ofplausibility. This situation is compounded by the negative stance ofnew
curriculum policy towards the former content-based approach to teaching and learning.
Teachers' main source of identity is under threat from the new emphasis in teacher
education on methods and outcomes (ibid.). Mattson suggests that teacher education
should help teachers develop their confidence in the disciplinary knowledge they teach.
This will help them to develop their own sense ofplausibility without outside agencies
trying to reform them (ibid.).
The number and complexity ofthe unknowns in teaching does prove to be problematic
(Woods 1980:18). This gives rise to negotiation and the formulation ofstrategies that
usually create Cl- dissonance between theory and practice. "Individual teachers are faced
by the harsh realities ofthe classroom that impede and often frustrate the practice of
teachers' expertise", forcing them to employ an 'educationist' perspective in the
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