Strange Fruit?

Are instructors prejudiced against free enterprise?

There is a strange paradox afoot in the halls of our universities. I have visited websites that attempt to catalog the wide variety of e-learning materials available on the internet. (“Mathtools” is one example; “Merlot” is another.) Members can post links to stuff they find, and their peers can comment on their choices.

So here’s the paradox: resources that are “for-sale” are generally trashed by instructors -- not because of their relevance or usefulness, but solely because their owners have the gall to actually charge money for their use. Instructors likewise wonder aloud that there must be other resources on the Internet that folks don’t have to pay for.

Wait a minute… aren’t these the same instructors that get paid for teaching? Aren’t they the same instructors that tell their students to go out and buy the $120+ textbook? Don’t some of these instructors teach Economics, or Entrepreneurship?

Isn’t there a saying, “Those who can’t do, teach”?