{"id":7358,"date":"2011-06-06T14:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/06\/teach-your-chil\/"},"modified":"2011-06-06T14:00:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T14:00:49","slug":"teach-your-chil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/06\/teach-your-chil\/","title":{"rendered":"Teach Your Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

Ph. is taking an online class this summer: LS211: Introduction to the Humanities<\/em>. It’s a class I know well. I first developed the online version several years ago2002<\/sup> and taught it a handful of times, including every summer during my tour de PhD. I was the course developer for, I don’t know, seven years right up until I landed in Ypsilanti.<\/p>\n

Now two years later, I encouraged him to enroll in this particular course because he needs it for his major, and I thought there was a chance the main textbook might still be in use and a few crumbs of the course I’d designed might be lingering in the new version. All this amounts to is a faint hunch that we could have some conversations about the course materials–in-family supplemental instruction.<\/p>\n

You can imagine my surprise–and horror<\/em>–when Ph. received as a welcome email an message I wrote many years ago as a template for other instructors to adapt when welcoming student into the course. What a peculiar turn, this message in a bottle, from me to students in the early oughts, then with details removed as a template from me to instructors of the course, then minimally modified from an instructor to Ph. late last week.<\/p>\n

The class begins for Ph. today. In fact, he just shared with me a Google Doc with the major project assignment (because I was curious; plus he is working in my office today), and, indeed, it is the very assignment prompt I created a half decade ago. I’m baffled, conflicted. I mean, I know it was work-for-hire. I know the other school “owns” these course materials. I know they are entitled by contract law to redistribute and make money on every scrap of material I put into that course. And even though this situation hints at odd and unsettling pedagogical practices (for a course–ironically–we paid tuition for), and even though I am not crazy about the idea that Ph. would be taking a course dependent upon such an aging bundle, I am nevertheless reassured by what feels like stepping through a wormhole, i.e., that the course is solidly enough developed that materials I wrote and assembled several years ago could still be sound today. It’s a principle to teach by, I suppose: create classes you would like for your children to take one day (and understand that if you sign a contract releasing work-for-hire, you just might end up paying tuition for them to take it).<\/p>\n