I'd like to tell a story about pencils. While this may seem like an unlikely connection to my responsibility as an educator to address copyright concerns in my classroom, I'll do my best to make the connection.
Like many teachers, I often face the struggle of making sure all of my students have a pencil for class. I've tried everything. It's been a requirement of my class to bring ALL necessary materials to class, I've built it into participation rubrics, I've taken away points, I've given points and every thing in between. I tried my best to employ the crowd-sourced "community cup" where I initially filled a cup with pencils for my students to use with the hope that they will fill the cup if it becomes empty. I've tried bribery, extortion and fair exchange. My students have even tried to give me their shoes in exchange for pencils (another teacher in my school actually operated on that system)! I've even gone as far as to make tiny tags withy name on them attached to each and every pencil that was mine. Later while prowling the halls on the lookout for my pencils, many a student trembled in fear as I rightfully reclaimed my property.
But none of those strategies worked.
Fnally, it dawned on me. Why were my pencils disappearing? I realized that my students were not taking any responsibility for the "borrowing" of the pencils. They assumed that the pencils weren't important to anyone and as such, could be taken, forgotten and replaced by me. That realization led me to my current system, which works extremely well. I have a stock of easily recognizable pencils (sparkly Cinco de Mayo ones) that I keep in a cup. On the first day of school I speak to the students about borrowing and lending and what their responsibilities are as borrowers. I ask them what is "doing the right thing" when you borrow something. They universally tell me that the right thing to do is to return the object after it's been used. After all, they do that all of the time and let's face it, it's not rocket science. So, I keep my 20 pencils in a cup on my counter and if a student needs a pencil, they go and get one. At the end of each class I close by saying, "if you've borrowed anything from me today like a book, a pencil or a chair, please return it because it's the right thing to do." I almost always maintain a constant supply of 20 pencils and I even have kids coming into my room after their classes have ended, apologizing for accidentally forgetting to return my pencils.
So what does this have to do with copyright? Well, regardless of legality, I believe that it's my responsibility as a teacher to talk about copyright and infringement because IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! The internet is full of "pencils" and we need to remind our students that all of them are important to someone. They have responsibilities to fulfill. In my previous post, I discussed this in some detail, but my basic argument is that we should not be discussing copyright because we want to make sure that our students aren't stealing work, rather that the right thing to do is to responsibly create our own work, or to simply to give credit where it's due.
Like many teachers, I often face the struggle of making sure all of my students have a pencil for class. I've tried everything. It's been a requirement of my class to bring ALL necessary materials to class, I've built it into participation rubrics, I've taken away points, I've given points and every thing in between. I tried my best to employ the crowd-sourced "community cup" where I initially filled a cup with pencils for my students to use with the hope that they will fill the cup if it becomes empty. I've tried bribery, extortion and fair exchange. My students have even tried to give me their shoes in exchange for pencils (another teacher in my school actually operated on that system)! I've even gone as far as to make tiny tags withy name on them attached to each and every pencil that was mine. Later while prowling the halls on the lookout for my pencils, many a student trembled in fear as I rightfully reclaimed my property.
But none of those strategies worked.
Fnally, it dawned on me. Why were my pencils disappearing? I realized that my students were not taking any responsibility for the "borrowing" of the pencils. They assumed that the pencils weren't important to anyone and as such, could be taken, forgotten and replaced by me. That realization led me to my current system, which works extremely well. I have a stock of easily recognizable pencils (sparkly Cinco de Mayo ones) that I keep in a cup. On the first day of school I speak to the students about borrowing and lending and what their responsibilities are as borrowers. I ask them what is "doing the right thing" when you borrow something. They universally tell me that the right thing to do is to return the object after it's been used. After all, they do that all of the time and let's face it, it's not rocket science. So, I keep my 20 pencils in a cup on my counter and if a student needs a pencil, they go and get one. At the end of each class I close by saying, "if you've borrowed anything from me today like a book, a pencil or a chair, please return it because it's the right thing to do." I almost always maintain a constant supply of 20 pencils and I even have kids coming into my room after their classes have ended, apologizing for accidentally forgetting to return my pencils.
So what does this have to do with copyright? Well, regardless of legality, I believe that it's my responsibility as a teacher to talk about copyright and infringement because IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! The internet is full of "pencils" and we need to remind our students that all of them are important to someone. They have responsibilities to fulfill. In my previous post, I discussed this in some detail, but my basic argument is that we should not be discussing copyright because we want to make sure that our students aren't stealing work, rather that the right thing to do is to responsibly create our own work, or to simply to give credit where it's due.
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Public domain via wikicommons |
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