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Natalie Alexander is a kindergarten teacher in Milan, Tennessee. She has been teaching for 11 years and has had 18 projects funded through DonorsChoose.org! Read on to learn more about Natalie.

Natalie, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We’d love to hear more about you and how you became a teacher.
I work for the Milan Special School District as a graduation coach, Kindergarten teacher and mentor. I love the opportunity to work for my hometown as a teacher. I also love going to work each day to see those sweet, smiling faces that are excited to learn!

I decided to become a teacher when I was little. I was pushed along the path of medical careers but decided I was going to do more good in the educational field.

Tell us about a project you’ve recently had funded through DonorsChoose.org.
One of the projects I have had funded this year was “Learning Games Are Never Lame”. This project was for our new classroom method of teaching. We incorporated literacy learning centers into the Kindergarten program and my class was in need of reading games. These games have been some of the favorites among my students. The Ladybug game and the Sight Word matching game are the most used. This is something they can use over and over again. They often don’t realize they are learning because they are having so much fun with the games. We greatly appreciate all the funds and donations! I appreciate the help with making my lessons fun and interactive.

My students are just as excited as I am about getting new supplies to use in the classroom. The boxes arrive in the room and the first question is “What is in there?” It feels like Christmas when we get the new supplies. The excitement for learning is wonderful!

Throughout Teacher Appreciation Week, we’ll be asking our supporters to tell us about their favorite teachers. Who was your favorite teacher?
My favorite teacher was my first grade teacher, Mrs. Wilma Hassell. She loved her job and was always smiling. I never saw her show favoritism. She made learning fun and she had an interest in all of her students’ home lives. I can remember her allowing me to get a hug or sit in her lap when I was sick. I also remember her coming to see my brand new baby sister when I was in her class. She went above and beyond!

Thank you Natalie, for all you do for your students! To see Natalie’s DonorsChoose.org projects, check out her teacher page.

Recently, actress Claire Danes shared a story about Mrs. Sydney, one of her favorite teachers:

“I can still picture my first grade teacher Mrs. Sydney in her Betty Boop jean jacket. On the first day of school, she taught me how to write the word “hello.” Now there is a skill! She was warm and smart, and even at six years old, I could tell how passionate she was about her work.”

To join Claire in honoring a favorite teacher:

1. Give to any classroom project;
2. When making a donation, you’ll have the chance to leave a comment about one of your favorite teachers.

Kelly Ridgway is a high school English teacher in Lamont, Oklahoma. Ms. Ridgway has been a teacher for six years and has a great story about how she came to the decision to teach!

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

Oddly enough, when I was getting my Bachelor’s degree, my father encouraged me to get a teacher’s certificate at the same time. I adamantly refused to do so because I was never going to be a teacher! I started teaching while I was in graduate school, and continued to teach part-time as an adjunct faculty member at a local community college. About six years ago, I felt God leading me to teach full time. I went through my state’s alternative certification program and have been teaching ever since. I truly love teaching. My only regret is that I didn’t listen to my father when I was an undergraduate.

Tell us about a project you’ve recently had funded through DonorsChoose.org.

This year, my “Learning with the Bard” project was funded providing my students with classroom sets of two of Shakespeare’s plays in a graphic novel format: The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet. We had so much fun reading them. Neither of the classes that read the books had read Shakespeare before. They were nervous about doing so, but the comic book format made it easy to understand the language and follow the action. When we finished reading the books, I made them available to other classes. They’ve been popular! In fact, I have had students ask me to get more of his plays in this format.

What a great story! It sounds like you’ve really helped your students discover something new! We’d love to hear about one of your favorite teachers.

This is a hard question to answer. I’ve spent 21 years of my life in school, and I’ve had many great teachers. I had two teachers in high school that really encouraged me to be the best I could be: Lynn Babinski and Ginger Stout. Mrs. Babinski was my journalism teacher for four years. She taught me to write, but more importantly, she taught me how important it is for teachers to care about their students. Mrs. Stout was my Spanish teacher for three years. She taught me the value of trust and commitment in the classroom.

Thank you, Ms. Ridgway for telling us your story! To see Ms. Ridgway’s projects, check out her teacher page.

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we’re asking our supporters to share stories about their favorite teachers. Check out some of the inspiring stories we’ve heard thus far!

Jaime L. from Philadelphia, PA
Ms. McKenna, my French teacher, taught me about nontraditional assignments and mindblowing dedication. Under her direction, we played French Jeopardy!; I’m still pleased that I knew what distinguishes a “French salad” from other salads (lettuce). We celebrated Christmas with traditional French carols and foods (I made the Buche de Noel, for extra credit). We made annual videos based on “dialogues” that we had to compose in French; my dialogues, created in conjunction with friends, included a French cooking show during freshman year and an Oprah-esque talk show during junior year (complete with commercials). Ms. McKenna was also the faculty advisor for our school newspaper, for which I eventually served as editor-in-chief. She routinely spent HOURS with the newspaper staff, above and beyond her regular duties, including long weekend days getting the next issue ready for press. She arranged for us to attend local journalism conferences, submitted our work for awards, and pushed us to become the best high school journalists we could be.

Mr. Minieri, my American History teacher, was legendary throughout our school for his outrageous lectures and cool assignments. During our first week of class, he had us go to our local libraries and photocopy the front paper of a newspaper published on the day we were born (an exercise that caused a bit of an explosion from my dad, who was horrified that I didn’t recognize the person who graced the Philadelphia Inquirer’s front page from my birth day, Phillies pitcher Steve Carlton). Later that year, Mr. Minieri had us create newspapers of our own, highlighting any events from American history that caught our fancy. He took us to Washington, D.C. to explore our history in person, he assigned us book reviews on American history topics to prompt us to read nonfiction thoroughly and thoughtfully, and he shared the story of his own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, giving us a personal perspective on a crucial period of American history.

Sharon S. from Germantown, MD
My favorite teacher was Amanda Hagen. She was my 3rd grade teacher in Florida in the 1960’s. She taught our class literature. One of the things we did was memorize a part from an Alice in Wonderland poem. Then we went around the classroom, each person saying their part of the poem. I still remember my part! She taught us about art. We learned to tell if a painting was by Picasso, Rembrandt, etc. The class was so wonderful that the school decided to do an experiment: they let her teach us again in 4th grade.

To this day, I can’t remember if something happened when I was in 3rd grade or 4th grade. I believe Mrs. Hagen ended up teaching in China for a while, and then taught gifted children. She was a constant inspiration. Her enthusiasm for the work was as important as the way she treated all of her students with compassion and respect. Thank you Mrs. Hagen!

To celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, we asked some of our supporters to tell us about their favorite teachers. To kick off the celebration, Bill Bradley, former US Senator and DonorsChoose.org Board Member, shared a story about one of his favorite teachers.

To join Senator Bradley in celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week, donate to any DonorsChoose.org classroom project that inspires you. Then, we’ll ask you to leave a message about one of your favorite teachers. Your message will be shared with the classroom you support!