National Teachers Initiative
The National Teachers Initiative is a project of StoryCorps, the American oral history project. Each month this school year, "Weekend Edition Sunday" will celebrate stories of public school teachers across the country.
Learning Works charter school in California takes an unorthodox approach to getting young people to graduate. Students who had previously dropped out get mentors who help with everything from getting to class on time to staying up late studying. Now, some of those who graduated are helping others.
December 25, 2011 Teacher John Hunter invented the World Peace Game to get his elementary students to think about major world issues. He also wanted to teach them compassion and kindness. At least two of his former students are on the path he helped to pave.
October 30, 2011 Ayodeji Ogunniyi's family came to the U.S. from Nigeria in 1990. His father worked as a cab driver in Chicago, and he always wanted his son to become a doctor. But while Ogunniyi was studying pre-med in college, his father was murdered on the job. At that point, he says, his life changed course.
September 25, 2011 As a middle-school student in the '80s, Lee Buono stayed after school one day to remove the brain and spinal cord from a frog. He did such a good job that his science teacher told him he might be a neurosurgeon someday. That's exactly what Buono did.
September 25, 2011 StoryCorps is honing in on lessons about learning with a new project for the academic year called the National Teachers Initiative. It'll feature conversations with teachers across the country — teachers talking to each other, students interviewing the teachers who changed their lives, and more.