Sharing Resources

This week our debate was about a semi controversial topic, should teachers openly share resources online? I was one of the ones in the debate this week and in my opinion I had the argument that was harder to convince people of, and that is the argument that teachers should not share their resources and materials online. And as much as I would like to stand by the side I was on in the debate, I have to say that I think teachers should be sharing resources online, although I did find some good points in favour of not sharing resources.

Lets look at the side for not sharing materials, and instead selling them on sites like teachers pay teachers. When doing research for the debate I did find some good points stating why teachers should be able to sell their materials. To start, teachers should be allowed to sell materials they create, it is no different than an artist selling their work. Another point was that when teachers give away their lessons, they may not get anything back in return, leading to educators being taken advantage of. Although these are all true, in my opinion it does not outweigh the advantages of teachers working together and sharing lessons and resources.

Education is a generally cooperative and generous field. Most teachers I know would be willing to give someone else some lesson plans or materials to help them out when they need it. The TED Talk Kara shared talks about how easy it is for us to share information and yet we are restricting access to this information. He talks about how education is booming and there is going to be so many more schools and jobs opening up in the coming years. This means many more professors and teachers without any materials or lessons to work with. So the ability to find resources shared online is important for these new educators to have access to. As a becoming teacher myself, I would love to be able to have access to some materials when starting out my career. Especially when I am more inexperienced in creating my own materials than someone who is 20 years into teaching. I really like what Jesse said in class, if you are in education, but not willing to help others by sharing lessons and resources, than you are in the wrong field. And I completely agree, when using teachers pay teachers, some teachers may be making some extra cash, but the money they are making is coming from other teachers. Instead, we need to come together and help each other up. All of us teachers are in this field together, and we only get stronger when we come together, and build each other up with the sharing of information and materials.