Just Share Your Peaches

This time of year, Matt, my weightlifting instructor at the Y, comes into every class for several weeks with a bucket full of small peaches and offers them to everyone who will stand still.  He and Steven have quite a garden, yielding not only peaches, but okra, blackberries, peppers, and a variety of other produce.  They eat and freeze and preserve, but they have more than they can use, so they give what they have to friends, spreading joy and nutrition to those around them.

As usual, I hear you saying to your screen, "What in the world does this have to do with education?"  

Legitimate question. Peaches are being used here as a metaphor for the things you have "grown" in your career.  If you are an experienced teacher (at least in the U.S. - I'm not sure what the lesson planning is like elsewhere), you have created a ton of things during your career.  From a simple but well-crafted physics problem to a complex project, you have produce, and you likely have more than you can use.

In the school where I taught for 21 years, sharing was the norm.  If someone was going to teach the same thing you were, you did some planning together and shared some resources in common.  When Jenny, our chemistry and AP physics teacher went part-time after having a baby, and we hired another chemistry teacher, Jenny handed over a flash drive with her entire folder and invited her to use it at will. 

Because it was the norm at GRACE, I thought it was standard practice everywhere.

Like all naive takes, a little time on Twitter disabused me of that notion. There are teachers all over that platform who are proudly selfish about how they won't share the resources they created unless they are paid for them. They are the same teachers who talk about "quiet quitting" and never doing anything out of contract hours, so it isn't super surprising that they would hoard their resources too.  What is surprising is the number of "You go, girl. Stand your ground." responses they get from others. We've turned selfishness into a virtue, apparently.

Listen, I'm not saying you have to give away absolutely everything.  You can be on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I am too. 

There are sometimes good reasons not to share.  I once asked a seventh grade teacher to please not do the same demonstration I was going to do with them in 8th grade. There were two reasons for that: 1. She was only doing it because it was fun; it didn't actually demonstrate any of her content.  2. The value it had in my content was the mystery because it was counterintuitive, and it would lose that if they had already seen it.  If the demonstration had fit her content better than mine, I would have let her have it, and I would have come up with something else.  You may have a truly good reason not to share some things.  But, if your reason is just, "I made it, so you can't have it unless you buy it," you might be in the wrong profession.

Experienced teachers, there are new people in your building this year.  They need what you have.  Remember what that was like?  They need peaches.  They need okra.  They need blackberries.  They need resources, and you have more than you can use.  

Remember that the goal is student learning.

And share your dang peaches.