should teachers be allowed to sell their lesson plans online?

[queenlives]

read an article about this over the weekend and now see an article on slashdot about the same topic:

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11/15/222211/Public-School-Teachers-Selling-Lesson-Plans-Online

interesting topic.

(edit: here's one of the sites they use: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com)

 

[flaminio]

Public school teachers, no. They are government workers, and the work they produce belongs to the nation, and should be in the public domain.

Private school teachers, also no. They work for the company, and the work they produce belongs to the company. The company may wish to sell it, and may wish to reward the teacher that created it, but the teacher can not sell their work independently of the company (school).

 

[Aaron94T]

I would say yes, as what is the ultimate goal? For the teachers buying the plans it would be to teach better through better lesson plans. If a teacher cares enough about his/her students to buy a lesson plan for them, more power to them. On the flip side, if a great teacher has an innovative way of teaching a subject, why not share it?

 

[queenlives]

i think this is a very interesting topic.

seems to me that unless they have signed an IP agreement / union rules say they can't, etc, if a teacher wants to create lesson plans on their own time - say, during summer vacations / holidays, etc - and sell them, they should be able to. they're employees, not slaves.

i would absolutely love it if the best teacher's would make their "best practices" lesson plans / work available to other teachers... for free or profit.

 

[Patdeisa]

I say yes- my wife was a teacher and the plans she developed were done on her own time- evenings, weekends, holidays, and over breaks. These are done in excess of a normal teaching day (6-7 hours of classes) plus prep time (photocopies, grade inputs), plus grading (another 1-4 hours/day), plus parent/teacher or student/teacher communication outside of regular business hours. A creative lesson plan is a teacher's own intellectual property right- the school doesn't pay for teachers to develop anything beyond what is needed in the classroom- it's up to them to make learning interesting.

Edit: I came up with this illustration to explain my viewpoint. Let's say you're an engineer working for a company (or even between jobs). Over a vacation, you spend your personal time (40+ hours) coming up with a tool that could help you do your job better. You go back to work, and find that your tool helps you work better, and now other companies want you to work for them because you're now more efficient than other engineers. If you leave the company for another, who owns that tool? If you use that tool at the new company, do they own it now? I believe the answer is no in both situations- as long as you made it on your own time, it's yours.

 

[docjohn]

Sadly the only way "the best" teachers could help the vast majority of mediocre teachers would be through cloning:wink:

 

[queenlives]

Sadly the only way "the best" teachers could help the vast majority of mediocre teachers would be through cloning:wink:

i hear what you're saying. sigh.

i suppose a natural question / discussion is to what level can a substandard person execute a best practices set of tools / plans.

 

[Dtrigg]

I've taught at California State University - Northridge, University of California -Santa Barbara and the Academy of the Arts in San Francisco. I was an Adjunct professor at all of these institutions. Basically I taught to give something back to the community. It certainly wasn't for the money. That being said, I made my lesson plans on my own time. I never thought about selling my lesson plans, but if I wanted to, I think I should be allowed to. In terms of purchasing one, I don't think I would do that.

 

[Sig]

Public school teachers, no. They are government workers, and the work they produce belongs to the nation, and should be in the public domain.

Private school teachers, also no. They work for the company, and the work they produce belongs to the company. The company may wish to sell it, and may wish to reward the teacher that created it, but the teacher can not sell their work independently of the company (school).

It seems to me that you are making several key assumptions regarding the nature of time/place in which these lesson plans are created. If said teachers are creating original content on their own time with their own resources, the guv'ment or a private institution cannot lay claim to the IP. That is unless we are talking about putting a hammer and sickel on the flag.

Employment agreements generally cover use rights of IP produced on company/govt.

 

[nsxotic911]

Yes