What we do
We provide teachers with immediate, free, and open access to experience based lesson plans.
Beginning teaching requires grabbing ideas, curriculum and materials to acquire a broad repertoire.
The lessons here are not scripts, and they are “experienced based”, having the standard definition of being built from lessons done in actual classrooms, with actual teachers. Stray often and innovate. Continue to develop yourself into an intelligent, resourceful person, who thinks on their feet and responds to the situation and people around you. Every lesson you teach is a jazz solo: once you know the chord progression, you improvise a new lesson: teaching is ephemeral art for the moment. A thinking, responsive person is the model we want for our children to learn from; it’s who we want people to be.
As teachers have time to evaluate how to work with students, they revise, throw-out, and invent to customize for the individual needs of students; teachers become the authors, producers, and here: the publishers.
We provide a place for the career professional, who would like to give the gift of their wisdom and knowledge to people who will credit their authorship, and give it away in return.
Our goal is to support teachers throughout their careers with professional development and classroom resources. From lesson and unit plans to assessment and evaluation tools, teachers can draw on the experience of other education professionals to help them improve their practice. All of the resources are developed and uploaded by teachers, under the Creative Commons license, and can be customized to suit individual needs.
Why we do it
We support teaching as a profession, and seek to encourage collaboration with the open sharing of ideas, empowering teachers to play their essential role in the creation of innovative curriculum that strengthens the foundation of education in America. The monopoly or centralization of curricula, testing, or evaluation by corporations strips teachers of discretion, authority, creativity, and development. We exist to propagate teaching as a profession, and put the classroom, the cradle of democracy, back into the hands of the people who build civilization.
Knowledge is power. Its distribution: democracy.
Great ideas and individual rights cross geographic, political, and religious bounds as education resources become more accessible. This education resource is a cumulative, ever-improving bank of knowledge and practice. OpenSourceEd.org welcomes your knowledge, creativity, and insights and invites you to take part in this movement for educators to contribute and shape their profession.