I kind of ran out of ideas to write about on my blog, so I went to The New York Times' education page. I stumbled upon an article by Winnie Hu entitled, "Selling Lessons Online Raises Cash and Questions." The story explained teachers are not selling their lessons online at sites such as Teachers Pay Teachers. Some school districts are requiring teachers to give them a portion of the profits, claiming the teacher's work is their intellectual property.
As a sometimes very old school teacher, my first reaction was kind of negative to this story. After spending the last two years fielding requests for answer keys to quizzes and tests from my colleagues, I'm a bit sour on those who don't do their own work. However, I checked out the Teachers Pay Teachers site and there were a few lesson plans I would be interested in purchasing. I would probably tweak most of them, but there is something to be said for using what is available. One lesson was a station activity on the exchange of goods during 1450-1750. I was thinking of doing a similar activity and would benefit from somebody who has already worked out all the details. Although i would probably change things, why run into a bunch of problems I don't have to?
While I think most teachers would probably use these lessons as a guide, I do think some would use them without any consideration to their students abilities, their teaching schedule, state standards, etc. Several items for sale were tests and reviews. How can you give someone else's test or review without changes?
I see purchasing online lessons as a huge benefit for a teacher that does not have a mentor at their school or in their district. It would help the teacher know what other people were teaching and would save the teacher time. However, how quality are the lessons and resources available? I decided to preview a lesson I was interested in on Teachers Pay Teachers. The lesson was a "Who am I" review game. The idea is good, but the cards were filled with grammatical errors. My personal pet peeve, "Buddhism believes..." How does religion believe something? Buddhists believe, but not Buddhism. There are reviews but most are not very helpful. I enjoyed the one that complained, "there is no key provided." Beyond quality, are the lessons appropriate for the course? For instance, my class is a survey. We do not spend much time on one topic. There are lessons for AP World History that suggest spending 3 weeks on the Renaissance. The power points for sale provide WAY too much detail on the topics. They are probably good lessons but are entirely inappropriate for the course.
While I might not be offering up lessons for sale or buying them, I think they might be beneficial to some. What I find particularly interesting is the debate about intellectual property. While I know my school owns my computer and the technology in my classroom, I've never thought of my lessons as being their property. Honestly, most of my lessons are created at 2 a.m., long after I'm off their clock. Most of the teachers I know do the same thing. Furthermore, why would a school district begrudge its teachers some extra cash? Most of the lessons I saw were selling for $2-$3 its not like these teachers are getting rich. Would you sell your lessons online? Do you think your district would object?
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