Sonja Bair

High School Teacher

After a short hiatus, we are thrilled to welcome Sonja Bair back to her science teaching post at the High School! A Michigan native, Sonja attended Hope College where she received her BS in Biology, and went on to receive Masters’ degrees in Environmental Health and Industrial Hygiene before teaching for a public school in the state. Six years ago she was wooed to SLO by the prospect of working at SLOCA (we’re sure it had nothing to do with the weather!) and how a classical education fosters the connections between subjects. Anyone who has taken a class from Sonja (Biology! Earth Science! Chemistry! Physics!) will not be surprised by the fact that this is her favorite thing about the education at SLOCA. What they might be surprised to find out is that she was almost held back in kindergarten because she just didn't care about learning. But then, halfway through first grade, her best friend told me about the best library book ever, "The Little Blue Bug" (she still remembers the cover). She checked it out and, to her horror, realized she couldn't read it! She remembers staring at the words, knowing that there must be some wonderful treasure hidden in the letters, but she couldn't decipher them. The frustration she felt propelled her to teach herself to read in short order. From then on, she realized that treasures do indeed live between the covers of a book. So much so that she’s even written one of her own! When she’s not diving into the exciting world of scientific discovery with her high school students, you’ll find Sonja hanging out with her husband, kids and puppy. And by “hanging out”, she means working on the fixer-upper house they just bought... Sonja’s quest for learning in the year ahead is to discover how to bring technology into the classroom in meaningful and appropriate ways.