The etiquette of freebies

I love free stuff as much as the next person.  I'm a teacher!

I think it's part of my DNA.  That said, I think that the rise of teacher/authors and freebies has created a bit of a best practice conundrum that I wanted to address.

I have heard teachers mention that all they use Teachers Pay Teachers for is to collect freebies.  They use them to make up their fuller units of study.

This is NOT best practice and I am going to go on record and say that I don't think there is a single teacher on TPT that creates their freebies for the purpose of teachers putting them together to create a larger unit of study so that no one ever has to pay for a quality unit.

A unit of study reflects the culture and rhythms of the teacher who creates it.  It is meant to be taught as an arc.  Not every piece of it...but, obviously, the teacher had a stream of consciousness while they were creating that fit the needs of their learners at that time.  Freebies are NOT typically intended to be a reflection of a full unit or course of study.  They are just a little tidbit to enhance or enrich.

Often, freebies are given as a sample of a larger more complete work.  It is much better practice to see where a teacher was coming from--from beginning to end, rather than to just take a small part of their idea and piece together something else.  Instruction should be explicit, and hobbling together a unit from several different teaching practices is not going to be explicit.

I have tons of freebies in my store, but the things I offer for free are not the same as what I would offer in a paid product.  I think they are good ones, but they are intended to show the quality of my work and aesthetic.  My hope is that if you love them, you'll come back for the even BETTER ideas in a paid product!

Typically, freebies are there to whet your appetite to more from that teacher/author.  When there are so many of us out there, the best way over the years to get found is to offer quality free ideas.  Now that Teachers Pay Teachers is so much bigger...there are more freebies, and we've created a culture that lives off the gravy instead of the mashed potatoes. 

Because freebies are just a sample, they are not meant work explicitly for you.  A teacher with their own classroom created that on their own time for free.  If they did not offer it as an editable document, then, that's not what they intended.  Asking for people to change free content to suit you is widely considered bad form by teacher/bloggers.  It's free, family.  I don't know what possesses people to ask to modify things that are FREE.  Of course, if it has an error...by all means...address THAT...but please, don't ask people to change colors and add columns and other pieces to it.  That's a drain on their time from creating things for their classroom that are full content units.

So, now that I've told you why sometimes freebies get on my nerves...let me tell you how they can SUPPORT best practice in a classroom.

If your freebie is just one small token to enhance a larger part of a unit of study you developed, by all means...enhance away!  That's the whole point of these small tidbits!

I just posted about estimation not too long ago.  If you have a rockin' unit that you use, but you just wanted the 'cute factor' of a recording sheet and you slide mine in there...GO FOR IT!

I WANT you to do that! :) It's why I gave it to you! :)

If a certain teacher's freebie enhanced your lesson and you enjoyed it, go back and FOLLOW them.  Look in their stores for quality content...I bet there will be tons of things there that you'll like!  Plus, if you follow them, Teachers Pay Teachers will send you a little note whenever they create new things so that you can stay in the 'loop' with them.  I LOVE that! :)  There are a handful of teachers that I ADORE and when I hear that they created something new...I love going to check it out to see if I could use it! :)

Remember behind every quality freebie is a generous teacher who wants to be a part of helping you be your best.  Don't forget to say thanks for the time that they spent to help you! :)

Want to follow my classroom adventures more closely?  Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.