BrianAndPamela.com

Add me to the list of people opposed to eBay’s ban on Teachers Edition Textbooks. Short version of the story is that eBay, responding to pressure from “parents, educators and publishers” (more on that in a moment) has banned the auction or sale of Teachers Edition (TE) Textbooks and other curriculum and materials that are intended to only be used by “professional teachers.” Given that many homeschooling parents rely on the TEs for sample lesson plans and other material and that purchasing these books from publishers can cost a great deal, and most homeschoolers are very budget conscious (shouldn’t they be? they are paying for everyone else’s kids to go to school plus their own but don’t get me started…) the secondary market for homeschool curriculum is very active.

Quick definition for those who might be unaware: Teachers Edition (TE, also known as Instructors Edition, or Instructors Supplemental) material is material sold as a companion to a larger educational material offering. The best example is a TE textbook, which in addition to having the full text of the student edition will also have more references, annotations, amplifications and other enriching information to add to the lessons. Often these TE materials include sample lesson plans, quizzes and even tests with answer keys. Traditionally, these materials were not intended to be used verbatim from the book, but adapted by the instructor for use in a customized lesson plan. Unfortunately, too often TE quiz and test material is photocopied and distributed to students as is, then graded directly from the answer key. We now return you to our regularly scheduled rant:

Personally, I used to love the TE materials when I was in school. Not because I was memorizing the answer key (my memory isn’t that good) but because the TE was filled with all kinds of information that simply wasn’t in the boring textbooks we were using.

Now, I intended this to be a strong support of homeschool and a condemnation of the anti-homeschool culture that seems to pervade the educational establishment, but as I worked through the issue, I realize it’s much more than that. This is an issue not of NEA vs. Homeschool but of progress and change vs. status quo, and the heart of the matter is actually lazy institutional participants that refuse to adopt new ways of thinking. But we’ll get to that in a moment, first, let’s get back to eBay.
So why is eBay doing such a thing? According to information found here, and here, eBay has declared that TE textbooks (and one can assume all TE materials such as lesson guides and even curriculum plans) is a violation of eBay policy not to allow sale of items that are “illegal, dangerous, offensive, or potentially infringing.” Well, why don’t I just give you the whole quote?

I’m sorry… I don’t get it, well, actually I think I do. Ok, the policy came about after eBay heard from “parents, educators and publishers.” Well, I would bet you it wasn’t homeschool parents or homeschool educators, so let’s think about them a little more. “Parents” in this case almost certainly means parents whose children purchased a TE on eBay, memorized or gave out the answer key and got caught. Instead of focusing the wrath on the corrupt motivations of the child or the educational climate, these “parents” recognized that it was the availability of the material through eBay that caused their precious angel to stray from the path of virtue and enlightenment.

Publishers? Well, publishers have a vested interest in curtailing the secondary market; they think it will increase the number of people who have to pay their prices.

“Educators” is normally a euphemism for the National Education Association, whose long time anti-homeschool bias is well known. (Do I actually need to link that one for you? Here.) Let’s for a moment think about reasons other than the fact that the NEA thinks they are the only ones who can indoctrinate, I mean teach, the children of America. No doubt teachers who base their classes on the TE materials are frustrated by the easy access children now have to things like answer keys. But isn’t that a by-product of the easy access all of us have to all information these days? Aren’t there better ways to guard against cheating than restricting freedom?

I’m not a trained educator, but just sitting here I’ve thought of several:

• Multiple versions of the quizzes or tests (boring and only complicates the problem, doesn’t solve it)
• Teacher introduced questions that are not in the published answer key (if a student gets all of the test right and the teacher questions wrong it’s a flag)
• Instead of printed quizzes, the test and answer key could be randomly generated online the day of the quiz, then printed and distributed (Hooray technology)
• Age restrict access to TE/curriculum materials (21? 25? lame and just another way to game the system)
• (here’s a radical one) Teachers could actually create quizzes and lesson plans that are customized to the classes and students they teach

That last might get some hackles up, and I apologize, but seriously, shouldn’t there already be an element of teacher involvement and participation that overcomes the tendency for some children to cheat?

Regardless, the internet is impacting education in many ways. Forcing access to materials underground is completely the wrong way to go. You can’t limit technology to protect the old way of doing things, you need to adapt. Teachers already need to be aware of how their students are using the internet for research, learning and yes, cheating. If you take homeschool and TE material off eBay, all you are doing is making it harder for the secondary market to function, not eliminating the actual gray market cheaters. They will still find access to the information. They did even before the internet made it easy and they will still. To twist a phrase: If you outlaw TEs only outlaws will have TEs.

The answer to technology changing a process (in this case access to educational material) isn’t to limit the technology, rather the answer is to embrace the change. How many ways can that technology improve the educational process?

Those “parents, educators and publishers” don’t want to change. They don’t want to be challenged. They want to push on, oblivious to the fact that the world is changing around them and by refusing to react, they are in fact only strengthening the belief in their children that education is an outdated, irrelevant system to be gamed. But it’s alright, because it’s all eBay’s fault.

Come on, eBay, stand up for once. Find a spine. And to the rest of you Educational Luddites: it’s 2006, good morning, time to join the revolution.