Of course they do. I knew I was being buffaloed.
Though the point stands that why don't they share lesson plans? Why do we need 3.7 million unique lesson plans? There ought to be plenty of off-the-shelf plans to use.
As for why there aren’t off-the-shelf plans:
You might want to adapt the curriculum to the current class of students or the broader community. The College Board does distribute a syllabus for AP US History classes, but it’s deliberately sparse so that teachers can plug in people and events that are “locally valued” (their words, not mine). A class in Alaska might spend more time on Native events and statehood; one in Boston might up the emphasis on the Revolutionary War events that happened nearby; Texas is going to go crazy with the Alamo. This is true for other subjects too. A science class might spend more time on local ecosystems that they can visit. A few of my literature class read a play and then went to see a production of it; that part presumably had to change every year, based on what was being performed nearby.
The other reason is that the teachers need to review the lesson plan anyway: no one can remember a thousand hours of material! While doing so, it makes sense to “refactor” them into something that matches your own mental model of the content. Teaching off someone else’s materials feels weird and often goes a little more poorly.
Teachers aren't paid very well in many places and, at least here, funds aren't made specifically available for purchase of lesson plans; teachers spend their own money buying lesson plans. It's easily worth it when there's a second income in your household. Perhaps not in places where teachers are very poorly paid and for those who are on a single income.
You mean no teachers set up a github repository where they give away lesson plans just to be helpful? Teachers are unable to pool their resources and help each other? "Hey Mr Hand, I'm teaching science for the first time next year. Can I use your lesson plans?" "Sure, Ms Halsey!"
Besides, teachers complain a lot about spending all their time devising lesson plans. They might do cost-benefit check on whether they might be way ahead taking a second job, using part of the wages to buy plans, and spend the rest on a vacation.
People unfamiliar with problems frequently think they are easy, because they fail to understand the complexity of the problem.
A similar question might be “why would you invent a new programming language, when you could just use an existing one?”
Answering that question to a non programmer might require hours of explanation and background, and you might find yourself just sighing and saying “never mind”. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a reason, or it was a bad idea. It just means it’s not your job to explain things. Particularly to people who make it clear they have an agenda.
Believe it or not, I wasn't arguing against you. My main point was to agree with you, and to inform: markets exist for lessons. The prices are quite reasonable. Some are free. I hear free lessons are typically lower quality.
I also (indirectly) pointed out that lessons are necessarily different from one another. What I've observed is that some work needs to be done even when plans are obtained from another party. Though, from what I've seen, much less. Purchasing lesson plans is a big time-saver.
Perhaps next time someone complains to you about spending too long lesson planning, you should propose they purchase some lesson plans, and see what they say. To me, that's the interesting question. Do they know these are available? Do they find the cost reasonable? Are they opposed to purchasing these lessons in principle, because they already spend their own money for the benefit of their students?
> They might do cost-benefit check on whether they might be way ahead taking a second job, using part of the wages to buy plans, and spend the rest on a vacation.
This statement is completely ludicrous to me. Humans should be given the resources they require to perform their jobs effectively. You might be strictly correct that individual teachers might be better off taking another job and buying these resources. But I think you should direct your ire at the employer of the teachers if you acknowledge that this is a problem. Consider the analogous statement:
> [Programmers] might do cost-benefit check on whether they might be way ahead taking a second job, using part of the wages to buy existing libraries, and spend the rest on a vacation.
Your sample set of teachers is very different than mine if they can figure out how to do something technical like that.
And of course teachers within any school will generally share whatever they can.
