Why Isn't Your Stuff Free?

For the full episode and resource list, visit https://artsintegration.com/sparkchasers/

Today’s our first reader question segment and it comes from Sharron who writes:

“I love the resources you share every week, but why isn’t more of your stuff free? Your audience is teachers and we don’t have a lot of money. I feel like I’m missing out on so many of your resources in the membership because I can’t afford the yearly fee.”

So...does that question make you feel a little uncomfortable? Or maybe it’s a question you’ve been dying to ask, too. Either way, I’m SO happy Sharron sent this in because it’s something I’m really passionate about. So let’s get started, friends.

 

Free vs. Paid Content

 

So many people are nervous to talk about money, but I think it’s important because it’s one of the ways our world operates. 

At the core of this conversation are a few key beliefs: the philosophy of sharing ideas, the mindset of teacher pay, and the uncomfortable idea that businesses are profiting off of underpaid individuals. We’re going to dig into all 3 of these today. But I want to start out with a simple phrase from the documentary “The Social Dilemma”: if you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product.

 

Key Ideas Discussed:

• Data privacy online
• 80% of what we offer is free. The rest helps to pay for our staff, platform access, etc.
• Paying for content that someone produced is okay. It doesn’t make you or them a bad person.
• Nothing is ever totally free - people have to get paid. So that could be with grant money, for-profit pay structures, or venture capital.

 

Business Models

 

One thing I’ve learned over the past 10 years is that you can never know someone’s backend business by what you see on the front end. Here’s some realities we need to remember:

Key Ideas Discussed:

• Non-profit vs. For-Profit. What do these two mean and how do they differ in the way they make money?
• Grant-Funded Model
• Crowd-sourced Model: Donations included
• For-Profit Model
• Why we chose a for-profit model
• How to look at a business or organization holistically. 

 

Teacher Pay Mindset

 

Finally, we need to take a look at our own mindsets about teacher pay and the value of what we choose to buy. Nobody goes into teaching to become a millionaire. But that doesn’t mean we need to keep up the mindset that we are “poor”, either. We have the ability to choose how and what we spend our money on. This is directly tied to our values.

 

Key ideas Discussed:

• Values to explore: Do we value our time over money? Do we value supporting other educators? Do we value our family over our jobs?  
• Some people believe that everything should be open-source and teachers should all share freely. However, would you expect to teach for free? 
• We can also leverage the power of dialogue with our administration. If there is something you need to make you more effective at your job, advocate for it with your administrators and community. It’s important to stand up for the tools that you need to do your job well.