Teachers paying Teachers
September 19, 2013
A site called ‘Teachers pay Teachers’ (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/) has been brought to my attention on the grounds of the ethics and legality of the site and its intent. The idea of the site is for teachers to sell their lesson plans to other teachers, where the web site is being used as a middle man or market place for the exchange of ideas for money (with a percentage of the profit taken, and given to the creators of the site). The ‘About’ section explains that it benefits the buyers to “teach at your best”, with justifications of; “Wake up your units with exciting ideas that are teacher tested and educationally sound” and “Get your time back. No reinventing the wheel. Get what you need, now. Don’t sacrifice your personal time to teach with top resources.” It goes on to list the benefits of being a seller with; “Hone your craft. Creating resources refines your skills. As you perfect your product, you enhance your teaching” and “Affect classrooms around the globe. Reach exponentially more students with your engaging and meaningful learning resources.”
When you look at this site, you have to look at it from both sides of the argument. One could say that teachers sharing lesson plans is an everyday occurrence, where a proven lesson plan is used in order to get facts, thoughts, and ideas across to students so they can successfully learn it. However, this is usually done among coworkers, where a teacher is either cross training or needs help with a lesson. This site is trading these ideas for cash between total strangers, and justifies it with ‘benefits’ like “Affect classrooms around the globe”. Should outsourcing lesson plans be illegal? I believe they should be grounds to terminate a teachers employment due to the fact that it is for profit. The reason why an educator is hired, is because of their creativity and passion to instruct their students, and to be able to make lesson plans and teach them. It’s the foundation of their job, and if they outsource it for a fee, then it should be illegal. My second qualm with this practice, is that every accredited school has an honor code, where the school and teachers expect the students to use their own ideas and not the work of somebody else. The same should apply to the teachers and their lesson plans, where they have to abide by the same honor code. We as students sign an agreement not to use anyone else’s work as our own, weather we plagiarize it or buy it. We should expect the same from our educators, else they should be blacklisted and kicked out of the school system.