Entrepreneurs: Teachers as Entrepreneurs
by Miki Saxon
People usually go into teaching because they had a great teacher who inspired them; they care about kids or believe that it’s a way to make a difference.
No one in their right mind will argue that teachers are underpaid.
Sadly, the politics, internal and external, the system, often working without even minimal resources or adequate textbooks combined with the grind of producing daily lesson plans that engage their students year after year takes a toll on their idealism and enthusiasm.
Teachers differ in their skills, strengths and creativity — as do people in every field.
What if creative, high-performing teachers had a way to share successful lesson plans with other teachers and make money at the same time?
Further, what if the cost was personally affordable, so that teachers didn’t have to find funds or get approval?
That’s the idea behind TeachersPayTeachers, a virtual marketplace where educators can buy and sell lesson plans just like an app store and similarly priced.
What kind of tunes do you think Iago, the villain in William Shakespeare’s “Othello,” would listen to if he had an iPhone?
That is the kind of question that Laura Randazzo, an exuberant English teacher, often dreams up to challenge her students at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif. (…) “For a buck, a teacher has a really good tool that she can use with any work of literature,” Ms. Randazzo said in a phone interview last week. “Kids love it because it’s fun. But it’s also rigorous because they have to support their characterizations with evidence.”
The site’s been around since 2006 and is highly successful.
To date, Teacher Synergy, the company behind the site, has paid about $175 million to its teacher-authors, says Adam Freed, the company’s chief executive. The site takes a 15 percent commission on most sales.
Read the article; then share it with every teacher, or their relatives, you know; tweet it and share it as widely as possible.
Whether they sell or buy they’ll win.
And if your effort saves just one teacher from burnout or makes their life a bit easier then, you’ll deserve a pat on the back — whether you know it or not.
Flickr image credit: Mike Sansone
