Staff Spotlight: K-4 STEM teacher Donnie Anderson is a ‘BESTagon’ when it comes to making learning fun

by Mary Jo David

Donnie Anderson, STEM teacher at Heritage School, believes in experiential learning as a means for dispelling students’ preconceived notions that science is hard or that they can’t do math. Photo credit: Deanna Kruger

If you didn’t know better, you’d guess that STEM teacher Donnie Anderson has spent his entire adult life teaching. Surprisingly, the four years he has taught for Stockbridge Community Schools—one of those years as a building sub—represent his first formal foray into teaching for a school system.

However, while working in retail management and information technology, Anderson, along with his wife Cecilia who is a CPA, adjusted their work schedules for years in order to home school their own children. And if their kids are any indication, the senior Andersons earned serious chops as home school teachers. Son Donnie, 27, is now a rocket scientist working on the space station that’s going to orbit the moon, and daughter Natalie, 25, is in a PhD program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Born in New Mexico, Anderson moved around a lot when he was young. While still in high school in Snyder, Texas, he already knew he wanted to teach, partly through the influence of a biology teacher, Mr. Thomas Strayhorn, who was a mentor to him. Anderson was also president of his high school’s DECA Club (formerly Distributive Education Clubs of America), an organization that focused on career and technical objectives for emerging leaders. While participating in DECA, he worked on a project to teach economics to elementary students; that project earned him a trip to DECA Nationals his senior year, where he finished in the top tier of project competitors.

Anderson attended college at Angelos State University in Texas, married his high school sweetheart, and then finished college at Eastern Michigan University. Fast forward to Heritage School in Stockbridge, where Anderson is now living the dream teaching kindergarten through fourth grade students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

His students really enjoy the active nature of Anderson’s class along with his teaching methods. He provides a lot of mini learning centers in the classroom, with many hands-on activities that give kids a choice of what they want to do in class and how they want to complete assignments. His classroom is kid friendly and boasts a 3-to-4-foot-tall rollercoaster built from K’NEX and a black light that makes the kids’ clothes glow in the dark!

This month, Anderson checked out a banjo from the Stockbridge library, and he’s been using it to teach his students about synthetic sounds.

Anderson, who’s a big fan of old cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, and Scooby Doo, wants learning to be fun.

“I truly believe in the philosophy of experiential learning, including learning through play. It’s important to help my students overcome any preconceived notions that science is hard or that they can’t do math,” Anderson explained. “They turn that corner in learning because they want to, not because they have to.”

He is excited to see with his own eyes that the past trend of only boys being interested in STEM is reversing, and now girls are loving STEM subjects just as much as the boys.

“This week one of my students thought she saw a rocket launch into the night sky. I love that she was thinking about science outside of the classroom and then coming back to school where we talked about all the possibilities of what she might have actually seen.”

Anderson encourages the parents of all students to look for learning opportunities outside of school. Frequently, parents come to school and laugh about how their kids often point out hexagons to their families using Mr. Anderson’s famous saying, “Hexagons are BESTagons!” He also suggests that museums are awesome places to learn and says even their own adult children still like visiting museums with him and his wife.

As for his students, Anderson has simple advice for them as they move on in their educational journey, “Always be curious and work hard.” And then he can’t stop himself. He adds one more piece of advice for good measure: “Don’t forget to be a BESTagon!”