Fab Educator: Sunny Zamar
Meet Sunny Zamar, a U.S. History teacher for 11th graders at Moon Valley High School in Phoenix. Zamar is known to go above and beyond for her students in the name of teaching history, including hosting in-class tea parties while covering the Boston Tea Party.
How long have I been teaching? 2021-2022 will be my 11th year.
What inspired me to be a teacher? I graduated from ASU with a degree in Criminal Justice and Criminology and wanted to go into law enforcement as a juvenile probation officer. However, I graduated in the middle of the recession so there were no state-level jobs available. I decided that I would return to school for my Master’s in education and teach History. Growing up, my dad always enjoyed History and always tried to expose us to it, so I developed an early appreciation for it. I thought this would be a great alternative to my original career plan. Once I got into the classroom there was no doubt in my mind that this is what I was supposed to do all along. I get to spend time with 16- and 17-year-old kids all day and share my passion for History with them! People don’t realize that there is so much more to being a teacher than just teaching. Sometimes we are the only positive adult presence in these kids’ lives. We act as teachers, counselors, mentors, shoulders to cry on, cheerleaders, disciplinarians, guardians, advocates – we really do it all! I have found that by going into teaching, I am still able to mentor young people in the way I wanted to as a juvenile probation officer. I still get to do that and share my passion for History with them. I love what I do and wouldn’t want to do anything else. I am where I am meant to be.
What is my greatest joy in teaching? My greatest joy is the relationships I am able to form with my students. They touch my life in such a profound way. I still keep in touch with so many of them all these years later. Watching them become positive members of society as they take on adulthood is so rewarding. I also love mentoring kids at this age. The world is so big and can be cruel. Some kids don’t have an adult that they can trust and lean on. In some cases, you are it for them.
What about my greatest challenge? My biggest challenge is the realization that you can’t save every kid. Sometimes their home lives and the situations they find themselves in are so unimaginable and difficult and out of their control. Many of those things are out of my control, too. I will do everything I can to help them to be successful in class and safe while here on campus. If help or access to resources are needed outside of school, I turn to the campus social worker and/or resource officer for those things. Like they say, it takes a village.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic altered your day-to-day as an educator? The past 17 months have been crazy, to say the least. COVID-19 completely changed the world of education overnight. We were thrown into the water so to speak and prayed for survival. Our life vests were our webcams, and our distress calls were emails to fellow teachers asking, “How are you teaching this? What do I do?!” When I reflect back on it, it is impressive how quickly teachers adapted. We had to become experts in technology through daily trial and error. Not only did we have to learn our own individual ways we would try to teach content virtually, but we also had to find ways to be engaging and build relationships with students through a screen. That is difficult when teachers are talking to 30 blank boxes on their computer screens. We all made do, and we survived.
If a student can have only one takeaway from time spent in your classroom, what would it be? If a student had one takeaway from time spent in my classroom, I hope it would be the realization that they matter and that they are important. Every child (no matter the age) needs to know that and hear that. I make sure that I show every single one of my students that I value them as a human being. Another takeaway that I hope they understand is that their life is based on their choices. That they can choose to do whatever it is they want to do in life. Their life is a result of their choices.