New English teacher brings wealth of experience

It would not be wise to ask new English 9 teacher Susanna Ryan what she did before coming to Saratoga High. Rather, it might save one time to ask what she didn’t do.

At her old job at Falls Church High School in Virginia, Ryan taught AP English Literature, Creative Writing, English 10 Honors and English 11 for 10 years; she also taught a composition course at Northern Virginia Community College for one year. Not to mention that she served as a private tutor outside of school as well as a varsity cheerleading coach, Lead Mentor and chair of the Honor Council at Falls Church.

Now Ryan has moved on to the next step in her life: teaching at Saratoga. A woman with dark brown hair and square-shaped glasses, she seems unassuming at first, but her energy and enthusiasm shine through. She describes herself as someone who embraces her “inner nerd.”

She hails from a world far outside the Saratoga bubble, growing up in Latin America and later living in Virginia and Maryland.

“I am really grateful for my time overseas because I was inspired to embrace different cultures and people,” Ryan said. “I particularly love to travel to parts of the world I have never seen before and to immerse myself in the everyday life of the local people.”

Her family relocated to San Jose recently because of her husband’s work. She said that Falls Church is somewhat similar to Saratoga in its size and diversity.

“After my first visit to Saratoga, I knew I wanted to be here,” she said. “The student body, the administration and the teachers all really impressed me, and I wanted to be a part of this community.”

Ryan earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and teaching credential at The College of William and Mary in Virginia and earned her Master of Arts in Literature at George Mason University in Virginia.

“In college, I kept finding myself choosing English classes as electives, so my mom suggested I work toward getting my English teaching credential, too,” Ryan said. “Once I started my internship at a high school my junior year of college, I never turned back.”

Ryan said she became a teacher because of her love of literature and teenagers, as well as the positive impact that her own teachers had on her life.

“I think it is an honor to be in the classroom with young people and to study my favorite subject — books! — all the time,” Ryan said.

Ryan sees her strengths as a teacher as her openness and “genuine interest” in her students’ lives.

“I really enjoy being around adolescents because I think they are just starting to figure themselves out and to really figure out the world around them,” she said. “I think that’s such a cool time to enter a young person’s life and to be with them as the light bulbs go off and his [or] her world starts to really open up.”

This year, Ryan looks forward to helping her students not only learn about literature, but also themselves.

“I hope that they feel cared about in my classroom and safe to be themselves,” Ryan said. “I hope that they feel that I challenge them to stretch themselves, but that I support them as they do so.”