When did I defend the schools? They're almost all horrible and unscrupulous but I find the idea of keeping lesson plans a secret amusing. What happens when you give the lesson? And as for being performatively woke if that means anything it means I put my ideas into practice - probably the opposite of what you were trying to say. Not that woke is a word I'd ever use.

@JanJal: I understand the conversation to be about theft of teachers' IP (yes, I said it) whose creation predates any employment contract. Therefore, I believe your entire argument is irrelevant.

The fact that musicians routinely get screwed by record labels has zero relationship to my point, namely: music is intellectual property, and so is educational content.

Jan is right by the way. Most white collar job contracts include a clause giving the employer the rights to intellectual property. Every contract I signed in the west had this provision. I suspect there may be the equivalent in Chinese contracts.

if you are salary staff, there is an arguement about what you think/dream up/create belongs to the company. if you are hourly paid, it falls down. and salary in china is a loose concept. employers here think it is the same as waged and it aint. if you are part of the gig economy and have at least 3 jobs, who owns your ideas? company a b c or z?? there are too many feckin amatur lawyers on here, i better stop before i join you

@herenow: "conversation to be about theft of teachers' IP (yes, I said it) whose creation predates any employment contract"

Still failing to understand your logic.

Do you mean, that if you developed some method of teaching prior to getting the job, then that method is your IP through subsequent employments?

It is not, unless you formally patent and copyright it somehow.

I don't even now how you would make lesson plan before even having the job, thus not knowing what is to be taught or for who.

I understood the conversation to be about lesson plans made (possibly on your own time) while under job contract.

If you voluntarily and willingly utilize your (even prior) educational "IP" in benefit of your employer, without any mention to it in your work contract, it's your mistake.

@cloudtrapezer wrote: " I find the idea of keeping lesson plans a secret amusing. What happens when you give the lesson?"

(1) I take "lesson plans" as shorthand to mean the whole content of the class, including PPTs, handouts, multimedia, etc. (2) Sure, IP is hard to protect. What happens when a musician performs a song? When a writer publishes an essay? I guess you would find their efforts to control their intellectual property to be "amusing" as well.

@cloudtrapezer wrote: "Jan is right by the way. Most white collar job contracts include a clause giving the employer the rights to intellectual property."

Not intellectual property whose creation predates the contract.

@JanJal wrote: "Do you mean, that if you developed some method of teaching prior to getting the job, then that method is your IP through subsequent employments?

It is not, unless you formally patent and copyright it somehow."

This is incorrect. Copyright is automatically conferred by law on content (e.g., written text) upon its creation. The formal process of declaring a copyright is just that, a formality.

I laid this legal minefield by mistake. I was only cracking a joke. Sometimes you lot make me laugh. You come to China and get relatively well paid for jobs that aren't exactly like working down the pit but spend half your lives complaining. You can get twenty times your salaries in the Gulf, so I hear. So there must be other compensations keeping you here.

you can sit in a lesson, and even video it, and you won't have the lesson plan. if you think you do you aint no teacher. its a bit like if you watch or even pirate a movie you don't have the screenplay and directors notes. there are also teachers who bring a catalog of resources with them, that they have built up over many years in some cases.

@JanJal wrote: "If you voluntarily and willingly utilize your (even prior) educational "IP" in benefit of your employer, without any mention to it in your work contract, it's your mistake."

So by this logic, if a musician takes a job performing for a venue, and then they proceed to perform some songs they had previously written, those songs become the property of the venue? Preposterous.