Those claiming that the American Education system is broken aren’t looking hard enough. It’s not broken, it’s evolving.  It’s molding like water to a punch bowl.  Where universities are offering ebooks, teachers are getting paid online, and innovation is coming from people’s home computers. The dynamic is changing in relation to human progression. One lever of the system can’t be pulled without influencing all others.

For example, the industrialized free market economy based on raw materials is going digital. Where the money goes in America, so also will at least a part of education. Why should students pay huge amounts of interest on loans, when the rich ecommerce venture capitalists they admire say college can be a waste of time? They’re out creating online communities that connect teachers to students and teachers with teachers, sometimes raking in millions.

Deanna Jump and Freelance Education

What happens to teachers when an economy collapses and they find themselves in need?  Apparently, they get crafty, and through fascinating sites like TeachersPayTeachers.com, make decent money on the side. In fact, one extraordinary teacher named Deanna Jump sold her original content teaching guides to hundreds of thousands of people. Why not? Here’s what I find interesting: if one does a search on Amazon for her name…guess what?  They won’t find anything.

Ebooks are going this route as well. They’re condensing from epic novels, to small marketing/branding packages of 10-20 thousand words, and from hundreds of pages to roughly 20-60. Non-fiction ebooks are taking off like a lightning bolt strapped on an outbound meteor.

Laid off teachers, through the 21st century virtual world, are finding that they don’t need to deal with the educational system grappling with fiat currency collapse and social transition. Through solidarity, like farmers markets of the first depression era, people are sharing what they have for reasonable prices without interest, undue fees, greed, or crony capitalism.

Two Ways Teachers are Making Money Online

Teacher to Student

This could be anything from ebooks, to blogging or freelance work. A teacher could compose study guides and sell them on any number of sites that cater to parents of younger kids up through college students. They could get hired by online universities and teach from the comfort of their own home, or hired by individuals and go door to door. In fact, teachers all over the US are not only selling their expertise to students in America, but all over the English speaking world.

Teacher to Teacher

Speaking of which, English teachers are showing teachers in China how to teach English to their students through any number of ways. Through sites like TeachersPayTeachers.com, which has generated over fourteen million dollars in sales/income so far, teachers can empower one another and stay out of the clutches of a generically overregulated system that oftentimes strangles them.

Criticism Coming from the Oligarchs

It seems that this emerging and truly free market digital economic model where teachers aren’t supposed to make decent money is disrupting the status quo. Deanna Jump became a millionaire selling her teaching guides after that same establishment kept her living from paycheck to paycheck. How many teachers’ lives and classrooms did she influence in her spare time?

The top down model is crashing and burning, but as a flower will sprout up through the cracks of a decayed slice of road, human innovation will flourish. Expect to see an ebook by Deanna Jump available on Kindle soon, it’s inevitable. Perhaps a how to guide on making over $700,000 by writing the perfect lesson plan for kindergartners that can be bought all over the world.

She is one of many, a part of entire generations going online to make a living. It’s sad that teachers appear so under-valued in our society, but it’s invigorating and inspiring that they can contribute in new and innovative ways. Hopefully, these kinds of stories will cause a few light bulbs to go off in anyone’s head who has something inside them to teach.

Speaking of that, keep reading this blog.  It’s coming, we promise.  🙂