Meet THI Instructor Suzanne Warner

Meet Suzanne Warner, Instructor of several Heritage Institute continuing education courses for teachers. 

Q:  Suzanne, how did you come to be an instructor for the Heritage Institute?

My first encounter with The Heritage Institute was years ago as a teacher – like many others, I took classes to improve my classroom management, learn new teaching strategies, and to recertify & move higher on my district’s salary schedule.  I always really enjoyed the courses I took through Heritage and a few years ago a former colleague of mine mentioned that she taught with Heritage.  After chatting with Mike, the President of Heritage, I joined the ranks and created my first course. This was in 2009 and I’ve enjoyed the experience of teaching with Heritage ever since!

Q: What are some of your most popular courses and what do teachers say they come away with after learning from you?

The Love & Logic courses have been my most popular, for sure.  Teachers, parents, and administrators often share that they feel empowered and re-energized once they complete their course and have implemented a few of the strategies. 

I’ve also created quite a few mathematics-focused courses and those have been popular with all levels of math teachers, especially my newest course, Mathematical Mindsets. Teachers share that they feel as if they have some new techniques to implement with their math students and they are more confident about integrating mathematics if they’re not a math-specific teacher (i.e. an elementary school teacher).

One of my most recent course creations is quite unique ~ it’s a Read for Pleasure course where teachers enjoy reading a book (or two) of their choosing! Of course there are a few other assignments, but this course has definitely been an exciting addition to the Heritage repertoire of classes.

Q:  What can teachers expect from you when they take your course? What is your style?

The feedback I receive the most is the appreciation by teachers that I am organized and provide timely feedback that is unique to each teacher. I enjoy interacting with others and learning from their experiences, so I really do value everyone opinion and ideas.

Q: What are some of the things you’ve learned from teachers taking your courses that have stuck with you?

What has always stuck with me is that no matter where we teach, what we teach, the age we teach, whether we teach in a large school, small school or home school, whether we teach full-time or part-time – is that we all share so many of the same experiences and feelings. We are passionate about our subject matter, we all have  students who just “get to us” sometimes, we all wish we had more time in the day, we all have some parents just drive us crazy, we love when a student “gets it” for the first time, we enjoy building relationships with our students and colleagues…….. I could go on-and-on. Basically, we all enjoy teaching and want what is best for our students.

Q:  Do you have any new courses that you are excited about?

Besides the Read for Pleasure course I mentioned above, the following two courses are brand new as well:

The Well-Balanced Teacher ~ This course focus on learning how to balance your life, thus creating a mindset of self-efficacy.
Reading Strategies for All Content Areas ~ This course offers easy reading strategies for non-reading teachers to help their students learn their content areas. 

Suzanne Warner, M.S., received her Masters Degree in Education from the University of Rochester, New York.  She has taught mathematics in the middle school, high school, and college settings, most recently in Oregon. Suzanne has been lauded by administrators, colleagues, students and parents regarding her teaching and classroom management skills. Her students enjoy learning in a respectful, productive environment, where each student is in control of her/his own learning and behaviors. She strongly believes that all students want to do well, and creates a teaching environment for them to succeed. 

When not in the classroom, Suzanne enjoys spending time with her family reading, hiking, backpacking and traveling.