Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers: How Addicted Are You?

I am super addicted! I get a LOT of my materials off of TpT! I love looking through pinterest for ideas!

 

Now, this is true, and is actually how I wound up on TpT so much. Nearly every time I saw something on Pinterest that I was interested in, it sent me to TpT. I used to immediately click back out, but one day I decided to poke around and see what I could find for free. I've had a lot of luck.
I feel absolutely no pressure to follow contributors on TpT or spend money there, so I do neither.

Pinterest I find more useful for classroom decorating, arrangement, and organization ideas.

 

I like both sites....BUT, I go on them maybe a couple times a week? The frequency of my visits on those sites will likely be higher right now that I am on summer vacation, but I guess I'm just not that obsessed. On TPT, I will only get something that is free. I never pay.

 

Oh, I don't even go on that often, LOL. I sort of binge browse/download every so often during the summer. When I posted this thread, I had just come off a major TpT binge download. And I love summer for this reason. So much time to think and plan and get inspired.

 

I love TeachersPayTeachers! So much great stuff. I also feel a little overwhelmed by Pinterest. I think it's because I still don't really understand how it works. When I find something I like on Pinterest, it seems like it's just a picture and there's no link to download the activity they're posting about. That may be me just not knowing what I'm doing! Or maybe, Pinterest is just supposed to be pictures.

 

Pinterest is also blocked by our school. Though, I love TPT, most of the stuff that i use is free. I rare;y pay for things and when I do, it is when there is a sale.

 

I am no longer a fan of TpT because so many sellers try to flood the Pinterest boards of the clients I manage. Even with clear instructions at the top of each board, the TpT people try to sneak their for-profit pins on our absolutely-free-nothing-for-profit boards, and it's pretty disgusting. I contact them and remind them and they apologize and then they do it again, with more and more excuses. No, thank you, TpT. Not me. You're just too rude and full of excuses.

 

Yep, it is about money and self-promotion but is wrapped in a "it's for the kids!" bow. And, as I said, it starts with the site owners. Ever since their huge copyright issue over Hunger Games where the site owner tried to solve the problem by taking her own pictures of the movie set and then SELLING THOSE PICTURES to teachers to use in their products it has been abundantly clear how out of touch the ownership is.

I don't understand why we teachers freak out when corporations profit off our kids but are proud when we do it ourselves.

 

I don't think anyone is profiting off of kids on TPT. Maybe they are and I haven't seen it. What I have seen is teachers profiting from THEIR OWN HARD WORK and creativity. Corporations that profit off of kids are creating situations where students must work for THEM in order for them to get money. Students taking standardized tests. Students' information being sold as data. That's radically different from a 3rd grade teacher creating a worksheet and selling it to other teachers for use in their classrooms.

 

Just thought I would share something that came up in my grad class today. The teacher was talking about having these great plans and drooling over what she had seen on Pinterest, when suddenly she admitted to being addicted to Pinterest, but she had considered that maybe she was too fond of Pinterest. Her reasoning? She had read this thread! Education is a smaller world than most would imagine!