How Not to be a Resource Dragon: Teaching and the Culture of Sharing

We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker this last week: Alan Levine, who is a/the Director of Community Engagement for Open Education Global (OEGlobal). There were so many highlights from his discussion, many around the idea of open access and open educational resources, but the thing that I got stuck on was actually the idea of, and the importance of, sharing.

When you visit the OEGlobal homepage, they have a headline that reads:

We advocate for and support accessible open solutions to _______.

The blank rotates between textbooks, courses, resources, practices, communities, institutions, technologies, policies, and education.

Because, let’s be real, there is so much more to teaching than just materials. But materials are a crazy important component!

I’m going to share my Financial Literacy piloting story, and I’m sorry if some of you have heard it before. And I’m sorry for all of the backstory. There’s a lot that goes into it, a lot that leads up to my point, and it’s been a huge part of my life the last year and a bit, and really opened my eyes to a lot of issues currently plaguing education.

The Backstory

On November 8, 2023, the Government of Saskatchewan announced that there would be changes coming to graduation requirements for high school students, including a reduction in the number of ELA credits that students would need in both Grades 10 and 12. We – ELA teachers in Saskatchewan – knew that this had been discussed, but we didn’t think that we were anywhere near a decision on the topic.

We weren’t.

The government went ahead and made that call without consultation with the people they really should have spoken to, and we were left to figure out the details. Which included, as an English Language Arts teacher, what was going to happen to our departments. The 2024-2025 school year saw a huge reduction in the number of sections available for English teachers, and next year, 2026-2027, will see another reduction. So I, a teacher halfway through my career, and accredited to teach senior level English, would probably be ok, depending on what school I was at, but there is really no guarantee! (And now that the government has also made the decision to discontinue grade 12 exams, as well as do away with the need for Grade 12 teachers to be accredited in order to teach certain grade 12 classes, I’m even more happy with the decision that I made!)

I, in an attempt to save future me from being asked to teach a new course I had no background in (and no real interest in) decided to inquire about piloting the Financial Literacy 10 course that was going to be a new requirement for Grade 10 students. Required course = guaranteed sections, so it made sense. And the DLC was promising that there would be a grab-and-go hub with materials, so it shouldn’t be too hard (or that was what I was told).

Where is foreshadowing in real life when you need it? We come across is all the time in the short stories and plays and novels that I teach. Why isn’t real life equally as equipped with forewarning?!?

Fast-forward to May/June 2024, and I have been accepted as a pilot for our division. I didn’t know it at the time, but there would be four of us – four – in Saskatoon Public Schools, which is not a lot when tackling a job this big. I was still waiting to see the curriculum document for Financial Literacy 10. I was still waiting for the hub. I was still waiting for P.D. I’m waiting for direction, or guidance, or an outline – anything that could give some insight into what I was going to be teaching in the fall.

And I continued waiting. I got my hands on an unofficial copy of the curriculum, which gave me something to work off of, and I spent most of July starting to put together the first Unit. Without the help of a hub, and any grab-and-go materials. Without any direction from the ministry. Without help from other Fin Lit teachers, because I still didn’t know who else was going to be teaching. I spent hours scouring the web for bits and pieces, for a lesson here or there that I could cobble together into a coherent unit, for information and resources, and some things I was learning myself before I could put anything together.

To be fair, there are a plethora of financial literacy resources out there. Seriously. But some are geared toward adults. Lots are geared toward adults. Many are piecemeal; a two-week financial literacy course, when I am looking to fill 20 weeks, or high school financial literacy, but for American students. Or Australian. Resources put out by financial institutions, but there’s a ton of front-loading that would need to occur before you can get to some of what they are trying to teach.

(all via GIPHY)

Take a combination of these, and you are starting to get a glimpse into my mood/mental health that summer, and throughout semester one of 2024.

I finally attended a PD session in August of 2024, about two weeks before I was supposed to start teaching the course, and I was devastated. We were guided through the curriculum document as though none of us had ever seen one before. The suggested assessments were (in my mind) overly simplistic and juvenile, lacking any real rigour. I still struggle with that one a bit. And the promised “grab-and-go” hub? A product of the Sask DLC (distance learning center). For student reproducibles only.

That sounds not bad, until you realize that you are going into a course that is brand-spanking new with students who have very little to no financial literacy background/awareness, and you cannot use ANY of those reproducibles until you first teach them about the concepts, terms, etc. that the reproducibles expect them to know.

Just in case anyone is wondering, the Sask DLC is a part of the STF. So you would think that what’s ours is theirs, and what’s theirs we should be able to access.

You would be wrong.

The open-access agreement between the Sask DLC and the school divisions in Saskatchewan are for student reproducibles only, NOT any teaching materials. Meaning that they will share the activities and assignments, but none of the material students need to know before you can get to that point. I even asked my principal, who asked our Superintendents, to look into the issue, and we were given a very firm “no” as a reply.

What I Can Remember of the Semester

So here I was. Struggling to put together this course, without any support in my building (I didn’t meet the other Fin Lit teachers in my division until the end of October, 2024), absolutely floundering, struggling to find resources. There were a couple of textbooks that were “suggested” by the Ministry, and I sent them all back. Two were on par for someone in University, and one was overly simplistic and vague. Broad, sweeping strokes without really getting into the detail that the outcomes were requiring. So no textbook provided. I finally made a connection with the other teachers (who were also struggling) – I ended up sharing my Google drive with one of them, who was new not only to the course, but also to teaching in general. We shared what we could, but we were all at about the same place, so we weren’t really getting ahead.

I did have a PD day (supported by my principal – NOT the division) where I got together with one of the teachers from my own division, and a bunch of teachers from the Catholic division, and we divided up the units and spent a day sharing and planning and trying to tackle this course as a group, as opposed to being left to our own devices. And it was the most beneficial professional development opportunity I have EVER taken part in. I have been teaching for 15 years, and this teacher-directed, we are going to create and share everything PD day was absolutely, single-handedly, without a doubt the most amazing interaction. We didn’t solve everything. I still scrambled, and was planning a day or two ahead of my students for most of the semester, but I had some guidance, and we had curated some resources, and I knew I wasn’t alone.

I somehow made it through the semester, with many visits to a counsellor for support, because my mental health took a brutal hit, but I survived. And it was very much – probably only – because of people and businesses and institutions who made their resources available to anyone who needed them. I will never again underestimate the importance of open educational and open access resources!

TL:DR – The Moral of the Story

My semester left me bitter. Without supports and access to resources that we were led to believe that we would have, I found the whole experience overwhelming, exhausting, and extremely disheartening. We claim to value sharing and knowledge, but when I most needed both of those things, it was almost impossible to find them, or I was so overwhelmed by the many internet options that a lot of the task was complicated just by having to wade through and pare down all the extraneous information.

And when I was asked to then share all of my hard work with the teachers who were coming into this course for second semester last year? I had a moment where I honestly considered putting my units up on TPT, or starting a patreon or something.

Instead? My Google Drive has been shared with any and everyone who has asked for help. I have spent hours answering emails and responding to Teams messages, trying to keep others from feeling the same way that I did. Because as much as I like dragons? I do not want to hoard my knowledge and resources and put others in a difficult position because of it.

On the flip side of things? I am teaching Fin Lit for the third semester, and have started to find my groove. I’m still editing things, and adding new things. I’ve made connections with more teachers. I have had a few (very few) people say anything resembling thank you (not that I’m expecting it, but again, considering the time and sweat and tears, an acknowledgement at least gives me a warm fuzzy feeling). But the most disappointing piece? Every person I share out to, I do so freely, save for a request to please share back anything that they come across that is different/exciting/unique.

I have not received a single reply or share back from anyone outside of our building.

In a perfect world? I would start a hub for Canadian teachers to upload their units/courses/Google drives, and it would be free, and anyone could access it, and there could be a discussion board where people could post resources and ask questions and get help. Because in my experience, we still have too many dragons guarding their hoards, when we would all benefit from that wealth being shared out.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. And the moral I was trying to get to in my very long-winded post? Sharing matters. It’s not just a nice idea or a talking point in a PD session. It can actually save someone from weeks of scrambling, frustration, and breakdowns. And teaching isn’t just about the materials we have; it’s about the people we reach and the support we give each other along the way. So I’ll keep sharing my Google Drive, my ideas, my failures, my successes, because if I can make even one person’s start in a new course a little less painful, it’s worth it. And maybe, just maybe, if enough of us start doing the same, those resource-guarding dragons will finally start to realize how much bigger that hoard can be when we all come together.