If you want to become a millionaire, it’s safe to say that teaching is probably not the profession for you. While teaching certainly has its own incredible rewards — worth more than a six or seven-figure salary, many would argue — it’s not exactly what anyone would consider to be a lucrative profession.
Until now, apparently.
TeachersPayTeachers is an online marketplace where teachers can buy and sell original downloadable education materials, hard goods, and used educational resources. The idea of the platform is that teachers can join as either buyers or sellers, and use the website to purchase resources or make money by selling them.
Photo credit- CNN.com
Last week, the site hit a huge milestone when Deanna Jump, 43-year-old kindergarten and first grade teacher at Quail Run Elementary School in Warner Robins, Georgia, became the first teacher on the platform to exceed $1 million dollars in sales of her lesson plans and resources. Over the past three years she’s used the platform, Jump has gained 17,000 followers and has sold over 160,000 items. According to TechCrunch’s article, other teacher’s aren’t faring too badly on the site either: two other teachers have reached $300,000 in sales, while 23 teachers have hit the $100,000 mark.
TeachersPayTeachers was founded in 2006 by Paul Edelman, a former teacher. Having worked the long hours and having earned the meager salary most private and public school teachers earn, he knew how hard it could be for teachers to make ends meet. Then he came up with the idea for the website: why not let teachers share their ideas, while making a little money off them as well?
Teachers can now sell lesson plans and other resources for between $5-9 on the website. The lesson plans and materials generally cover about two weeks of learning, for a variety of different subjects and grade levels. According to Edelman, there are 1.1 million users on the platfom, and total earnings have exceeded $14 million.
Check out CNN’s video featuring Deanna Jump and her work in the classroom, and how she got the idea to share her lesson plans on TeachersPayTeachers:
