Academics

Educator Profiles

Susan Miera

English
HS Academics
Santa Fe, NM

I have a B.S. in Secondary Ed from New Mexico State University, an M.A. in English from the Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College and have been awarded the DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fellowship for Rural School teachers, Annenberg Foundation Fellowship, and fellowship from the Educational Foundation of America for teachers of Native American students. I just completed my 38th year of teaching. I taught with Los Angeles Unified School District in East LA, Taos High School, and then at Pojoaque High School for 21 years. I came to SFIS in 2007 and currently teach English 4 and AP English Literature and Composition. My Community Based Education (CBE) unit is called the “Intergenerational interactions between residents of Kingston Adult Residence of Santa Fe and students from the Santa Fe Indian School,” and is in its 8th year. The goal was originally to strengthen student writing but also their interaction with senior citizens because when students have authentic audiences their writing becomes stronger.
I see myself as a teaching coach. I use the Socratic method, so I ask more questions than I give answers. My goal, especially for high school is to teach writing through literature. That way all state standards are met. So I take students from where they are when they come into my classroom, and I try to see growth in every single student. I do that through cooperative learning and through questioning. I try to instill a work ethic as well as well as academics. I prepare students to communicate in English so that they can be successful in whatever field they go into, even if they go back to their traditional settings.
There are two different kinds of memorable experiences I’ve had at SFIS—experiences with students and colleagues. Those are just kind of those light bulb experiences with students where they understand that every piece of writing, whether in film, a graphic novel, fiction or non fiction has an underlying message and they can then transfer that into their own life and it becomes relative to them as individuals and as a community. Last year, I taught a graphic novel, Persepolis, which is about the Iranian revolution and is a true story. It’s about a young woman who struggles with the changes in Iran and her struggles through being Iranian and Muslim in a non-Muslim country. Students saw themselves struggling through identities. But they saw how they could be successful through that struggle. They created their own graphic novels based on struggle. And some of their stories were incredible.
I think the number one value at SFIS is respect, respect for individual, self, for an educational process. But tied to that is perseverance, taking these baby steps, every singly day and realizing that each baby step will help students get to a better place and that together if we persevere through a year, all of our lives will be enriched because our paths have crossed. I tell my students, “I may not always agree with you, but I always respect your opinion as long as you can give me an opinion without ranting.” I also tell them they need to question: question their identities, where they come from. By questioning they have a real reason for why they believe what they believe. They aren’t like little willows blowing in the wind, but they understand why they stand for something.
I am passionate about teaching, I’m passionate about writing. I’m passionate about having varied experiences. I’ve been lucky to travel all over the world and I’ve been lucky to do that with students. I spent a summer at Oxford studying 17th century British poetry. Although I loved the academic setting, I’ve always gotten homesick for Santa Fe and its vistas. I missed the wide open sky. I think every single person has something they can identify with that makes that place home. Even though I’ve been all over the world, there’s no better place than home to me. For SFIS students, I dream that they will be able to be successful in any field that they desire to go into. I dream that they feel confident enough that they can state their opinions. And that they are strong enough to pass those messages on to generations to come. I think each one of us changes every person we come into contact with some way somehow and I want them to always make positive changes. I dream that they can take over my world. After 38 years of teaching, I need a generation that can dream big and make those dreams a reality.