Rebecca Moore Howard over at Schenectady Synecdoche just posted an email she received from one Paul Edelman, who identifies himself as the founder of Teacher Synergy Inc. Unsurprisingly, Moore Howard has been identified as a visible and authoritative researcher/teacher with a lot of good ideas and materials related to classroom practices, ideas and materials that Edelman wants to help her sell on a new website called "TEACHERSpayTEACHERS.com." Moore Howard's title for this entry is "Lordie.Pie." which I read as "There is so much to say about this email that I have no idea where to begin; please, just pass me my fan." Alternatively it could be read as "Lordie! (It's about time I get my piece of the) Pie!" But knowing Moore Howard's research and her political commitments (and also reading a slight Applachian-tinge in this phrase of taken-abackness) I'd have to go with the former reading. And I couldn't agree more.
But I will still enumerate a few things that are wrong with this idea, which Edelman claims to have already 'sold' to seven teachers of the year with the mere promise of entering their names into a drawing for an iPOD. (That's thing #1.) Thing #2: The email tries an analogy to current online marketplaces: TEACHERSpayTEACHERS.com will function, as he writes, "Sort of like ebay for teachers/professors and teacher-created materials." The analogy, of course, is already false because ebay is an auction. What, I'm going to bid on Stanley Fish's latest interpretive communities syllabus without looking at it? Or trying it? I couldn't afford it. Nor could I afford it if there were a set price of any kind. Thing #3: Edelman also tries out (obviously ebay-inspired) entrepreneurial language: "essentially you will be starting your own small businesses." Thing #4: the whole things smacks of the corporatized "best practices" approach, which has always, as now, set me on edge.
It might be tempting to compare such a marketplace to someone getting paid to visit a campus and conduct workshops like Moore Howard does from time to time. But such a comparison would be flawed: when Becky or anyone else visits a school to conduct workshops on plagiarism, or to talk about (as I have) incorporating newspapers into a composition course, we don't charge a door fee or set up a tip jar in the room for individual instructors to pay us for our ideas; instead, if any money is exchanged at all, the institution or department pays a modest honorarium, because the institution or department would like to facilitate an exchange of ideas, a communal sharing of practices.
Besides, if I were to 'sell' the notion of using a newspaper in my class, I'd need to pay Marie Secor at Penn State who first gave me the idea, as well as The New York Times, which once invited me to a focus group on teaching with the Times (the fifty bucks and free pizza is of course evidence that teaching is never entirely separate from commercial activity), any syllabi I consulted while cruising the web for readings and whatnot, my grad school pals and undergraduate students who tried this out along with me and with whom I refined the technique, senior colleagues who have evaluated my teaching and discussed any approach with me, and my textbook co-author Sharon Crowley, with whom I've written about such practices. In other words, the approach, or any syllabus I might develop, is not mine to sell.
In still other words: teaching practices are communally developed, communally shared, and if any money is involved, it comes from institutions (grants, honoraria, royalties, etc.) That's because teaching is a live practice with so many elements (techniques, activities, and syllabus components) culled from so many 'sources.' I understand that such ideas, practices, and yes, even artifacts are frequently shared with other teachers and professors in the form of textbooks, but when was the last time any of us who teach paid for a textbook? (I know, I know, I'll save the rant about how the textbook industry exploits students and authors for another time.)
Okay, I'll stop there, knowing that I probably should have left it where RMH did, and reached for my fan.
