SARA AGUAS

High School Science Teacher

Sara Aguas has been teaching Biology and Zoology at SLOCA since 2021. A native of Clovis, CA, she holds a Bachelors in Human Biology and a Certification in Classical Learning from Biola University and the Torrey Honors College. As befits a Torrey graduate, Sara believes that studying the humanities and sciences side by side enriches our understanding of both fields, and her passion for literature and philosophy are just about equal to her passion for biology. In college, she worked as a teacher’s assistant, lab coordinator, and epigenetic researcher. For a while she was convinced that she would end up in the medical field. However, after falling in love with how the study of life (biology in its deepest sense) was taught classically at Torrey, she began to look for a school that values the full cultivation of the whole person, nurturing lifelong learners who are also individuals of character and passion. For Sara, the blessing of classical education is that it teaches students how to teach themselves, so that education is not artificially restricted to the first eighteen years of life. What does it mean to learn how to learn beyond the classroom, without a teacher present, she wonders? Sara first felt this pull toward teaching when tutoring a group of children who had recently immigrated to the United States. She recalls: “They were learning about light, particularly how objects either absorb or reflect certain wavelengths of visible light to produce color. As I worked through this concept with one of the girls in the class, I saw understanding fill her eyes and she smiled at me. She began to look around the room and explain to me why objects were certain colors. I could tell that this information added to the wonder of her life… This knowledge also held power for this girl. She was the first in her family to ever be taught these concepts, and I realized the gift of education if not something to hold lightly.”

When Sara is not at school, she is likely with her husband Austin, fishing, cooking, going to concerts, and enjoying a good hot tub. She plans to get her Masters degree someday, but for now her most recent hobbies/obsessions have been gelatin art, uncontacted tribes, date palm trees, and interior design. Her culinary goals include learning how to cook all the foods she loves, particularly Thai food, sushi, and a particular dish from The Cheesecake Factory, Louisiana Chicken Pasta.