Conclusions

So what are we left with?

When teachers are allowed to sell lesson plans online, the lesson plans made available for sale will probably be better than the average plans offered online for free, the process of preparing the lesson plans for sale will generally force the sellers to learn more about their lessons, and if they are not allowed to sell their plans online, the information may or may not be made available to the teaching community without the backing of grants.

The teachers who buy the lesson plans will probably be those teachers who really care about improving their teaching, they will probably end up buying better than average lesson plans, thereby becoming better prepared to teach their students.

It sounds to me like everybody wins.

But what about the idea mentioned in the article, that “the online selling cheapens what teachers do and undermines efforts to build sites where educators freely exchange ideas and lesson plans”?

The “free exchange of ideas” often associated with educators is a bit of a misnomer, because much of the “free exchange” has traditionally been supported through salaries and grants to teachers.

But what happens when the salaries are cut and the grants dry up, which is exactly what is currently happening in the schools? Teachers who wish to continue to contribute must find other ways to support their “free exchange” activities, either by doing it on their own dime or getting reimbursed through online sales.

Alternatively, reimbursements for online sales of lesson plans may be considered a form of merit-based pay, in which teachers who work harder (i.e., come up with better lesson plans and take the time to formally prepare them) are rewarded for their efforts.

If teachers are not allowed to keep the money they earn from online sales of lesson plans, and if salaries and grants continue on their downward spirals, then many of the better teachers will end up devoting their time and efforts to other allowable activities that will generate money for them, either within the field of education, such as becoming paid tutors, or outside the field altogether. Is this really preferable to having them sell lesson plans online, which ultimately ends up creating better teachers and benefitting the students?