Teachers Cash in on Old Lesson Plans

In today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel there is a short article about online websites where teachers can sell their lesson plans and materials. Teachers then use those funds for everything from paying their mortgage, dinning out, or for classroom materials. The article talks about two key issues.

First, the question was, "Who actually owns these lesson plans, the teachers that created them or the school?" In many private industries, when you leave a job, your former employer is very careful to make sure you do not take anything with you that you accomplished while on the job. Teaching has never been like that. Each time I left my teaching jobs, I took with me a CD of all of my files along with many copies and paper files. If I had not been able to do this, it would have been like starting all over as a first year teacher each time which is not beneficial to the students at all.

Additionally, a large majority of the lesson plans and resources I have created were accomplished outside of school (over the summers, on the weekends, etc.). Does the mere fact that I developed them for use at a specific school entitle that school to the rights of those plans? Or because they were developed on my own time, are they truly mine? If so who keeps track of those plans I developed while on the clock verses those I developed on my own time?

Secondly, some were concerned that this sort of thing destroys the collaborative nature that is so prevalent in education now. There is definitely some truth to that. As a former teacher many of my materials came from colleagues or free sites online. And as a result, I have willingly shared many of my resources both online on my website and with colleagues. It is this collaborative nature that allows many teachers to excel at presenting engaging and worthwhile lessons.