CSUDH alumna Bridgette Donald-Blue never intended to have a career in teaching. When the Florida native completed her bachelor’s degree in English at Howard University in Washington, DC, she planned to go on to law school.
The words of a favorite professor echoed in her ears, though. “I remember he said, ‘I know all of you are going to do amazing things, but I don’t want you to just write a check. I want you to be involved and affect change.’”
Taking those words to heart, Donald-Blue decided to postpone law school for two years and committed to spend that time in the Teach for America program. The nationwide program fights educational inequality, signing up engaged citizens from across the professional spectrum and asking them to spend two years of their lives teaching in under-resourced schools.
Donald-Blue moved out to California and started teaching at an elementary school in Compton–and never left. “I found myself becoming an integral part of the community,” she recalls. “Teaching in Compton at that time, I saw the need and I wanted to be part of changing the educational landscape for the kids in my classroom.” Donald-Blue ended up teaching in Compton for a decade, before moving to the Los Angeles Unified School District to continue her career, which now spans over three decades.
Her thirty years of uplifting students was rewarded this winter when Donald-Blue was named California Teacher of the Year for 2023. Currently serving as a K-3 Math Intervention Teacher at Coliseum Street Elementary in downtown L.A., Donald-Blue is one of five educators to win the award this year.
It was while serving in Teach for America that Donald-Blue was introduced to the CSUDH credential program. “Somebody came and gave a presentation about getting your credential at Dominguez Hills,” she says. “Working in Compton at the time, the ease of getting to the campus was what originally attracted me to the school.”
Upon starting classes at CSUDH, Donald-Blue found much more to like. “I always found that the school has great instructors who were also practitioners. They had been, or still were, in the classroom,” she says. “They were all doing the work themselves. You didn’t get this ‘ivory tower’ feeling when you spoke to them. They were teaching us real skills and methods that they were using successfully in their own classrooms.”
Donald-Blue found herself leaving classes at CSUDH with applicable skills and strategies that she could then try out in her own classes. After obtaining her multiple subject teaching credential from CSUDH, she continued on and got an administrative credential and a master’s degree in educational administration from the university, as well.
Throughout her teaching career, Donald-Blue has been both fascinated and delighted at watching her students learn. “It’s so interesting to watch their minds work,” she says. “When you’re working with a kid and they’ve been practicing sight words or practicing letters, and all of a sudden they blend a word… or you put a book in their hands and there’s a word that they knew orally, but suddenly they can read it in a book–there’s nothing like that feeling.”
Donald-Blue describes her teaching style as reflective. “I’m constantly looking at data, at how students are understanding a lesson, then seeing where it can be tweaked or changed. I always think I could have done something a little better. If I give a lesson to 30 kids and 17 kids are right there and ready to go, that means that I’ve got 13 that are not quite getting it–and that’s absolutely not acceptable.
“So I always try to figure out: what can I do? To help make sure every student is learning, I end up including lots of different modalities. So if I’m teaching a particular topic one day, it might be taught via a lot of listening strategies; another day it might be taught through a lot of speaking strategies. I’m trying to ensure that all my kids can enter in and understand the subject matter, no matter what their learning style is.”
For Donald-Blue, “The greatest joy is knowing that at the end of the day, you have served the child well and served the community well.” Among her biggest thrills is being invited by former students to birthday parties or graduations, which let her know that her students still remember and appreciate how she helped them.
“It’s so great when people look you up years later and say, ‘You were my first great teacher, and you taught me to read. I really want you to come to my high school graduation!’ Those are big highs.”
When asked why she thinks she won the Teacher of the Year award, Donald-Blue is humble. “It was just an opportunity for somebody to peek into my classroom, see what I’ve been through in the last 30 years, and honor me. That’s the only thing I can say. Someone took time to honor me and say, ‘You know, what you’ve been doing is kind of cool and you’ve been helping people and it’s fantastic. So we’re going to name you California Teacher of the Year!’”
All five Teacher of the Year winners were honored with a reception in Sacramento on Jan. 23. “It was amazing. I feel like every teacher should be honored like that at least one time. It’s a celebration of the hard work you’ve been doing. It says ‘thank you’ for putting in the time, the long hours. It says ‘thank you’ for surviving rainy days with first graders, which is a test of any teacher’s strength and dedication,” she laughs.
For Donald-Blue, “The best part is now when you Google my name, videos about me winning this award will pop up. A couple of weeks ago, one little kindergartener told me, ‘ I have your video saved on my screen and I can play it any time I want to.’
“He said, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Blue, for being a teacher leader. We really appreciate you.’ But when he told me he had the video saved and liked to watch it over and over–that was really fantastic. To me, that means I’ve really made a connection and a difference in his life.”
