This CNN video shows how teacher Deanna Jump became a millionaire.
Jump teaches grade school classes at the Central Fellowship Christian Academy in Macon, Georgia. CNN’s Martin Savidge interviewed her for the video.
Throughout Jump’s 17 years as a teacher, she and her husband Ed had always struggled financially.
“Like probably 90% of the teachers in America I was juggling bills,” Jump said. “Like, OK I have to pay the electricity bill this week and I’ve got seven more days before they turn off the water.”
In spite of her financial troubles, Jump loved teaching and was continually coming up with new, fun ideas for helping her students learn.
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For example, she uses construction paper cutouts of apples and worms to show data visually. She uses cutouts of scarecrows to teach math. She also invented a “chit chat” rhyming game to increase student participation in reading comprehension.
Screen grab from TeachersPayTeachers.com, the website where a teacher made a million dollars selling her ideas.
One day another teacher said Jump’s ideas were so good she ought to share them on “Teachers Pay Teachers.”
How Teachers Pay Teachers Made Deanna Jump a Millionaire
Deanna didn’t know what “Teachers Pay Teachers” was, but she quickly learned that it’s a website that lets teachers sell their ideas to one another.
Savidge set up a Skype interview with the founder of Teachers Pay Teachers, Paul Edelman, who now lives in France.
“It’s an online marketplace with now 1.1 million teachers buying, selling and sharing original teaching ideas and resources with each other,” said Edelman.
Deanna Jump, the teacher who made a million dollars.
The ideas typically cost about $5 to $8 each. Savidge comments that this hardly seems like a “get rich quick” formula. However, Jump’s fun teaching ideas like “Where’s My Mommy” or “Fun on the Farm” quickly spread from one teacher to another, becoming quite popular and eventually selling over 160,000 units. Published accounts report that Jump has made over $1,000,000 on the website, which Jump confirms.
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What Does a Millionaire Teacher Do?
Jump’s husband Ed is a college finance and marketing professor. He’s shocked at his wife’s success and says never in his dreams did he think they’d make that kind of money.
Deanna Jump meanwhile says the money hasn’t changed her. She still drives her Kia minivan to school every day. One big difference? She never worries about bills anymore. Another is that each day her ideas show up in classrooms far outside of Central Georgia.
“Chit Chat,” one of Jump’s teaching games.
“Spain. Which was like, wow, Spain! Africa. I got an email from a lady in Africa who’s using one of them,” Jump said.
She keeps a notebook full of ideas she plans to sell in the future on the website. She says her pathway to financial success would work for other teacher too.
Savidge comments that, with everything teachers have done for him and his children over the years, it’s nice to see at least one of them making as much money as an investment banker.
Teachers Pay Teachers says its mission is to empower teachers by making it easy for them to open stores, to become entrepreneurs and share their expertise with others. Sellers can make extra money while reaching more students than ever before. Buyers enhance their teaching and save time.
To visit Teachers Pay Teachers, click here.