Let's back up. First of all, what is TPT?
The website says,
Teachers Pay Teachers is an online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original educational materials.
Why would teachers turn to TPT?
Educators are busy people. Excluding the other aspects of their jobs (i.e. staff meetings, classroom setup, school events), the three big pillars are planning, teaching and assessing. The teaching part takes up much of the instructional day. Marking, especially when it comes close to report card time, steals huge chunks of time. Factor in the non-teaching portions of life (e.g. eating, sleeping, taking care of yourself and your family) and it's understandable why purchasing pre-made materials can be seen as a time-saver. If you are not familiar with the topic or subject, it's easier to turn to someone who is seen as an expert to provide lesson ideas and activities. For teachers producing material for TPT, it supplements their income and rewards them for their labor. Some may not see the difference between buying a lesson guide from Pearson or Nelson (big education publishing companies) and buying from TPT. They might actually see it as "eliminating the middle man".
What's the problem with TPT?
EdSurge wrote an excellent article in 2021 that explained the issues. Author Stephen Noonoo used the example of Canadian writer Jenny Kay Dupuis and the exploitation of her book, I Am Not a Number. Edweek's 2018 article focused on the financial duplicity that occurs. This 2019 MiddleWeb blog by Brent Gilson mentions both the equity aspects and the intellectual property angle. The major arguments against using TPT can be summed up as:
- copyright violations (plagiarism)
- no vetting process (poor content quality)
- racist, sexist, erroneous content
- people selling others' work that they offer for free elsewhere
I'd add that teachers should be the experts on their students and no pre-bought package fits perfectly with everyone; it has to be modified and tweaked to suit the audience.
Am I against educators making money off things they produce? No. The very first publication credit to my name is a book study guide for the novel Pinballs for a company called S&S Learning Materials.
Alternatives
Maybe we need to do a better job in publicizing where educators can obtain free or nearly-free, properly reviewed lesson plans.
Some Ontario subject associations provide teaching materials. I know that OPHEA, the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association has saved my bacon many times this year with their Teaching Tools resource bank. Two weeks ago, I wrote about all the activities AML, the Association for Media Literacy, have been up to. On their website, they have a huge and growing collection of media literacy lesson plans and prompts. The Ontario History and Social Science Teachers' Association OHASSTA has links to presentations given at their conferences. OESSTA (Ontario Elementary Social Studies Teachers' Association) has lessons linked to the Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada and the Aga Khan Museum. STAO, the Science Teachers Association of Ontario, has a repository of lessons that you can even search by grade. CODE, the Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educators, also has lessons that you can access if you are a member.
I'm also going to suggest that teacher-librarians can help fill this hole. Collaboratively planning and teaching with classroom teachers means that great materials can be developed. For instance, I know about two talented educators (Farisa Rahman and Salma Nakhuda - Salma is a fellow teacher-librarian) who are part of the Muslim Educators of Toronto Association. They recently published curated resources about Ramadan, freely available to everyone using this link - bit.ly/Ramadan2022meta
I myself am in the process of making some Grade 3 social studies materials dealing with the Black Loyalists. It's not ready yet but I promise to post the finished resources here so that others can use them.
Can I also promote other cool tools I've found as I've "wandered" online? These are related to social studies, a topic that can be quite challenging to approach in an age-appropriate way for primary division students.
https://wikitrivia.tomjwatson.com/ = Wikitrivia is a fun, free, version of the card game Timeline.
mymaps.google.com = Recommended to me by both Juli Mori (secondary teacher) and Kerri Commisso (elementary teacher), it's a great way to personalize maps and make them meaningful and relevant. The bonus is that the students can co-create them with you, depending on their age and skill level.
My husband cautioned me on beginning my blog the way I did. He did not want me to insult or alienate my colleagues. I'll end with reiterating support for my fellow educators. It is a symptom of some of the problems with the system that teachers are not provided with time to adequately develop their own resources and/or are given resources that respect copyright, are culturally responsive, and are well-written. I'm told there are good materials available but that one has to look with a critical eye. I still think you are great teachers and I will try my best as a teacher-librarian to support you so that you do not need to spend your hard-earned pay on these items in the future.
I have to comment to my own blog because I forgot to mention a really good resource - TVO! I'm digging into their TVO Learn section and there are a lot of great things there for social studies!
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