Throughout the past 4 years of education classes, a common phrase that professors will use is "Beg, Borrow, and Steal" when referring to future educators obtaining resources to create lesson plans and the like. When I had to complete countless hours of observation and pre-practicum hours the teachers in the schools all said the same thing and many offered their own materials as samples. This idea of sharing information among educators makes perfect sense. If a teacher has materials and resources that are extremely helpful to educating students, why wouldn't they want those resources used by other teachers to ensure student success across the board.
However, when it comes to actually finding resources to create lesson plans the one place that seems to fail everyone is the internet. Long held as the place where you can find ANYTHING, the internet is surprisingly lacking as an teacher resource bank. Sure, there are plenty of scholastic sites choc full of resources if you have the money to subscribe. These are the same sites that create countless assessments used by schools, and even the creators of high school exit exams, college entrance exams, etc.
So it would appear that the last of the three rules of obtaining resources becomes a reality. Copyright laws seem to go out the window, photocopies are made and materials are passed around from teacher to teacher, teacher to future teacher, and so on. In a world where schools don't have enough money to pay their teachers and buy supplies for their classrooms, teachers are working two jobs because their passion for teaching outweighs their need for monetary compensation, these large educational corporations are making millions by developing the textbooks, creating the assessments, and most importantly, stocking up on all the resources so there's no where else to turn to get them.
Of course, teachers could (and should in some cases) develop and create their own resources to use with their lesson plans, however, in some situations it seems inefficient for each new teacher to re-create the wheel when they could be using that motivation and energy to improve upon what we already have and pave a new path forward. Instead, new teachers will spend their first few years catching up to the rest of the education world, and by the time they're ready to discover something new, over half of them will be burnt out from getting where they are.
Let's change the old adage from "Beg, Borrow and Steal" and make it "Accept, Reuse, Improve"
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| Image - businesscriticallearning.com |
So it would appear that the last of the three rules of obtaining resources becomes a reality. Copyright laws seem to go out the window, photocopies are made and materials are passed around from teacher to teacher, teacher to future teacher, and so on. In a world where schools don't have enough money to pay their teachers and buy supplies for their classrooms, teachers are working two jobs because their passion for teaching outweighs their need for monetary compensation, these large educational corporations are making millions by developing the textbooks, creating the assessments, and most importantly, stocking up on all the resources so there's no where else to turn to get them.
Of course, teachers could (and should in some cases) develop and create their own resources to use with their lesson plans, however, in some situations it seems inefficient for each new teacher to re-create the wheel when they could be using that motivation and energy to improve upon what we already have and pave a new path forward. Instead, new teachers will spend their first few years catching up to the rest of the education world, and by the time they're ready to discover something new, over half of them will be burnt out from getting where they are.
Let's change the old adage from "Beg, Borrow and Steal" and make it "Accept, Reuse, Improve"
-MB
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