The New York TImes ran an interesting article on the front page called, “Selling Lesson Plans Online, Teachers Raise Cash and Questions.” They discussed the new market for teachers to sell their lesson plans online and the philisophical question of whether this is ethical or whether the school districts should get a share of the profits if their resources were used.
Frankly, in most cases, where teachers have worked long hours outside of school to prepare great plans for a unit or lesson, I think they should be able to share those with other professionals and make a profit. In this era of documenting children’s progress and more meetings eating up a teacher’s time, we are all looking for ideas that would be beneficial to the students without reinventing the wheel. Isn’t it their “intellectual property” if they have developed these materials on their own time?
The article mentioned two websites that sell teachers’ lesson plans:Teachers Pay Teachers andWe Are Teachers, If you are a teacher or therapist, you might want to check these out for help in planning your next unit. I didn’t see much from speech therapists so maybe we need our own site!
Let me know what you think about teachers selling their lesson plans online in the comments below.
