Mrs. Anna Wunder - SPMS

Mrs. Wunder was my 7th grade Life Science teacher, but what I remember most about her isn’t just the science content, but it’s the way she made school feel like a place where you mattered. Mrs. Wunder described teaching as something always about relationships, safety, and giving her students a comfortable environment for learning and to be themselves.

When I asked Mrs. Wunder what inspired her to become a teacher, she shared something deeply personal. She explained that she had a rough childhood and that both of her parents struggled with addiction. Even though her basic needs were met, she didn’t always receive the emotional support every kid deserves. In that time, the stable adults in her life were her teachers, the people who made her feel safe and gave her a place where someone else was in charge. Her teachers made her feel that she didn’t have to carry the weight of adulthood. She told me that those experiences stayed with her, and they became the reason she chose this career, as she wanted to be that stable, dependable person for other kids. She described it as wanting to “give back,” and it’s clear that she truly does.

Mrs. Wunder didn’t start out thinking she’d be a teacher. For most of her life, she wanted to go into science and become a veterinarian. She went straight from high school to UCLA to study biology, fully on the vet track. In her second year, she had what she described as a mental health crisis due to the pressures of attending a large university and took a quarter off, which turned into four years. During that time, she was rebuilding and focusing on her mental health, and she ended up taking community college classes that happened to be in child development. She quickly fell in love with those classes. She even worked in child development while she was away from UCLA and considered elementary education, but eventually she realized the fastest path forward was to finish her biology degree. She’s actually glad she did, because when she returned, she fell back in love with science and realized she didn’t want to choose between kids and science, but instead she could combine both. That’s what led her to the classroom, and over time, she said it became something even bigger than “I like science and I like kids.” For her, teaching science turned into a life mission of helping students become scientifically literate.

What she said next honestly stuck with me. Mrs. Wunder explained that a lot of the global and national problems we deal with come from a lack of basic science understanding. She wants students to be able to look at primary sources, analyze data, and form their own conclusions. Soon enough, we are the ones voting and making decisions that affect other people. Her goal isn’t to tell students what to believe, but it’s to make sure they understand enough to make informed decisions, no matter their views.

One of the biggest themes that came up in our conversation was how much school culture and support can make or break a teacher’s experience. Mrs. Wunder told me she didn’t have one single moment that confirmed teaching was the right path, but she said she truly felt it when she came to South Pasadena. Before that, she taught at a different middle school with a much rougher environment, and she admitted there were times she genuinely wondered if teaching was for her, as she thought she would rather work in a lab doing “hard science” instead. She was thrown into her first teaching job without real guidance, and the teacher she was supposed to work with wouldn’t respond to her emails or even talk to her. She described feeling completely alone. Her first day there was so hard that she cried in the bathroom during lunch, cried on the way home, and cried through the first few weeks because she felt like she was just trying to survive without letting students see any weakness. On top of that, the school culture was demoralizing. She even shared an example of being pulled out of class for an official meeting because she was “walking her line wrong” and it took a full sub covering her class just for the principal to tell her that. Moments like that, she said, took her down several notches and made it feel like her professional judgment wasn’t trusted.

Then she came to South Pasadena where everything changed. She told me that Emily Williams, another Life Science teacher at South Pasadena Middle School, became a mentor who “scooped her up,” shared lessons, guided her, and helped her feel supported. Mrs. Wunder loved that South Pasadena was open-minded, social justice-oriented, and welcoming to different ideas and perspectives, which are all things that matter deeply to her. Her first year here was actually 2020, during Zoom learning, and even then she felt validated. With parents working from home, they could hear her teaching, and she started receiving emails saying they loved her lessons, their kids were laughing, and their kids really loved her. She said it was meaningful to hear other adults affirm that she was a good teacher, especially because she hadn’t received that kind of feedback before.

Even with all the passion she has for teaching, Mrs. Wunder is also extremely honest about the challenges. She said time management and burnout were huge struggles for her in the beginning. Without experienced support, she was arriving before sunrise and leaving after sunset, constantly behind on grading, and feeling like her job consumed her entire life. Over time, she learned something that I think every teacher and student needs to hear, “sometimes good enough is good enough.” She explained that she used to spend forever making things perfect, like fixing fonts on PowerPoints, and it wasn’t sustainable. Now she protects and prioritizes her balance. She makes herself eat lunch, she stops working after school, and she doesn’t work weekends. She said she’s learned how to build systems that make the job livable, and she’s proud of that.

One “teacher life hack” she shared that totally fits her practical, efficient style was her grading system. She told me she used to get buried under grading piles, take work home, and end up returning assignments weeks later, when students didn’t even care anymore because they’d already moved on. So now, she does what she calls “instant grading,” where when students finish, they come up and she checks it right away, gives immediate feedback, and asks for corrections before it’s even turned in. Once it’s completed and checked, she stamps it for full credit and doesn’t have to grade it again. It helps her, but it also helps students because they’re learning in real time while the concept is still fresh.

When I asked what the most rewarding part of teaching is, she immediately said relationships. She talked about how meaningful it is when students come back to visit and she gets to see how they’re doing. But she also shared a story that showed just how deeply teachers can impact students. She described noticing a quiet, high-achieving student who suddenly couldn’t stay awake and whose grades began slipping. Other teachers brushed it off as video games, but she trusted her instincts and knew something was wrong. She talked to him, got him connected with a counselor, and years later he came back and told her, “You saved my life.” He told her she was the only one who noticed he was struggling and the one who got him help. Hearing that, she said, was unreal and it’s exactly why relationships matter. Even when a student seems “fine,” being seen and heard can change everything.

Over the years, her teaching philosophy has shifted in ways that make so much sense for middle school. She said she’s learned to let things go and not “die on every hill.” She believes in balancing grace with structure and picking your battles. She also said she’s learned to embrace the chaos of middle school instead of fighting it. In the beginning, she tried to keep everything super orderly, and it made everyone miserable. Now she works with the reality of middle schoolers, as they need movement, collaboration, and learning that feels fun. 

One of her favorite traditions is something I remember: community circles. She told me she’s the only teacher who does them regularly and that some people see them as a waste of time, but she doesn’t. On certain Mondays, she puts science aside and has the class sit in a circle, share names and pronouns, answer a question, and do bonding games. Kids always remember it, and they always ask for it. She even collected quantitative data one year for her credential program and found that students felt more comfortable with each other afterward, more willing to work in groups, give feedback, and speak in class, all because of community circles. She also admitted it’s exhausting to run, especially with six periods, and depending on the class, it can feel like managing “whack-a-mole.’ But she said she’ll never stop doing it because it genuinely builds community in her classroom and for her students, and that matters more than anything.

Her advice to students went beyond school too, and it was honestly so genuine, “be kind to yourself.” She talked about how easy it is to live in regret or beat yourself up for mistakes, and how that mindset can shape your whole life. She shared that she and a family member had similar childhood circumstances, but their paths and mental well-being are completely different because of how they treat themselves. Her approach is forgiveness, moving forward, and giving yourself grace. She also said that grace should extend to other people too, because what you give tends to come back to you.

Mrs. Wunder teaches the way she does because she knows what it means to need a safe adult, and she chose to become that person for others. She’s the kind of teacher who pays attention, trusts her instincts, and notices what other people miss. She brings humor, honesty, and heart into her classroom, while still pushing students to think critically and become scientifically literate citizens of the world. Mrs. Wunder is proof that a science teacher can do so much more than teach science, but she can help students feel seen, supported, and capable from inside and outside of the classroom.