Improving Educational Opportunity And Rethinking Ownership
3 min read
If I buy and read a copy of Gatsby, is the value of my "ownership" of the text diminished if someone else buys an identical copy of the book?
How about if someone checks the book out from the library?
How about if I buy a copy of Gatsby and don't read it? While I own the physical text, do I actually own the novel?
If I check out a copy of Gatsby from the library, read the text, and return the copy to the library, does my "ownership" of the text end when I return the book to the library?
Writing books, and creating other works of art, costs money, and requires time, and considerable effort. None of that should be overlooked, and creators deserve fair and adequate compensation for the work and creativity. Texbooks, assessments, and learning materials for K12 education, however, are largely designed to be subsidized via public money; burdening these materials with copyright restrictions that limit how they can be used after they have been bought impairs our ability to use them to their fullest potential.
There is an enormous opportunity now, with the implementation of the Common Core Standards fueling a drive for new curriculum, to break the cycle of public money subsidizing private entities to develop goods and services that are then turned around and sold right back to public entities. If districts banded together to share the cost and effort of developing texbooks, assessments, and learning materials, they could create a foundation upon which we all could build.
To accomplish this, however, requires that districts update their notions of ownership. If a district pays for the development of a resource, their instinctive reaction is that they own it, and that ownership equates with the right and obligation to limit access. However, content is not bread. Two people can read the same content, and both can walk away satisfied. The value of a resource developed by a district is not diminished if that resource is used someplace else. When the content is developed with or supported by public money, the creators have already been compensated. When the content is released under an open license, in a format that supports easy reuse, future creators can improve and reuse that content.
If we focus on content as a thing that can be owned, we tend to view learning as a fixed thing that gets delivered. But, if we focus on content as a starting point, and look to the interactions around content - and connections between people and ideas that can be sparked by the right content at the right time - as the goal, we're moving in a more sustainable direction. Updating our concepts around ownership is a necessary step on that path.
