Lesson Plans: To Share Around or Stow Away?

Throughout my B.Ed year, I have had the opportunity to share some really wonderful resources with classmates and come away with a variety of teaching and classroom management strategies. Perhaps more significantly, my Associate Teachers were willing to share their library of resources with me; however, they asked me not to pass these resources on any further. While I will faithfully use these resources only for planning my own lessons, I must argue that many teachers are overly worried about giving away lesson plans and resources. Like the chisel in the hands of a master craftswoman or craftsman, teaching tools will have the greatest impact on students when implemented by confident, competent, and reflective educators. The presentation and execution of an activity guarantees its success and value; when the activity is written down on a page, it has only the potential for creating a successful teachable moment.

I must admit that I did recently withhold complete lesson plans in favour of providing brief outlines of the activities I had led, but in the future I hope to be much more free with the content that I put together. Many of my best ideas are adaptations I have pulled from other contexts, so the lessons I create are only in part my own to begin with. If I take the time to type out, label, and organize my lessons, I should consider this a favour to fellow educators.

I suppose that sharing our treasured binders of lessons and activities strikes at the very heart of humility in education.