New Teachers: The School Welcomes You!

Since the school year began virtually, students and teachers alike have been deprived of the social connection and interactions they usually experience on campus, particularly the new faculty members of our community who transitioned into the School online. This year, the School welcomes 16 new teachers to the faculty, nine of whom are in the upper school. Though some students have had the chance to meet and interact with the new teachers over Zoom, many of us have not had this opportunity due to the unusual beginning of the school year. In hopes to introduce the new teachers to the School community, this article features our new Upper School faculty and provides insight into their lives. 

Mikee Guzmán, a new Spanish teacher in the Upper School and 9th grade advisor, joins the School after teaching Spanish and French at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut. Guzmán also taught Spanish at Westfield State University in Westfield, Massachusetts and various English as a Second Language courses. “Joining a brand new community in the middle of a pandemic has proven to be challenging when it comes to feeling truly connected to students,” says Guzmán; however, he has enjoyed living in Oakland and “trying out new and innovative ways of presenting material and creating community in [his] classes.” Some of his favorite activities include cooking, watching movies, playing board games, and singing karaoke. During quarantine, Guzmán has binged shows on Netflix, such as “Love, Victor,” and worked on his fitness through Youtube workouts by Chloe Ting. Additionally, Guzmán was named after Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. 

Katy Liang, an exciting new addition to the upper school, joins the School this semester as an Honors Geometry and Algebra 2 math teacher. Before joining the School’s community, she taught at a few other schools including Berkeley High, James Logan High School, and Galileo High School. Although distance learning has presented us all with unusual circumstances, Liang says that “distance learning gave [her] an opportunity to try new things and gave [her] the space to feel okay to be not perfect. However, it is really hard since [she] cannot do what a teacher likes to do the best: … interacting with the students in person.” Furthermore, the School’s community was instrumental in her transition to distance learning. “So thank you,” she says. Liang has two young kids who she spends all her free time with, and has discovered new activities over quarantine, including planting a large vegetable garden, taking a variety of online classes and learning new skills to teach her kids. 

Morgan Guzmán, a new Western Civilization and History seminar teacher, started teaching during graduate school at UCLA. However, she “soon realized [she] preferred working with high school students rather than university students.” Guzmán went on to become a substitute at the School and then taught at both Urban and Bentley, before coming back to teach history this year. Guzmán says that the hardest thing about distance learning is “how difficult it is to build deep and personal connections with students in zoom rooms” and “getting to know the community remotely.” During quarantine, Guzmán has spent quality time playing car and board games with her kids, and binge watching shows such as Avatar: The Last Airbender. Some fun facts about Guzmán include her love for terrible TV and that she spent five to six years living in Germany. 

The School’s newest college counselor, Hayley Shapland, previously taught English at Carondelet High School, and her highlight of distance learning “has been getting to know [her] senior counselees during [their] regular Zoom meetings.” Shapland commented that she’s especially grateful for how her fellow College Counseling Office teammates have supported her in her transition into a new role. During her free time, you can find her reading, riding her bike, and climbing Mt. Diablo “with her husband and two young children.” Over quarantine, Shapland started watching The Patriot Act with Hasan Minjaj. Last year, Shapland took what she calls her “adult gap year” in Nice, France and was located a couple blocks from the Mediterranean. She recalls wonderful memories of “vibrant outdoor markets, beautiful architecture, and word-class parks and restaurants.”

Erin Be joined the School’s science department after teaching at the Bentley School as well as at a school on the East Coast before that. This year, Be teaches 9th grade conceptual physics and 11th grade biology. Be loves spending time with her family, including her three year old daughter, five year old son, and her husband. Additionally, she enjoys playing games, hiking outdoors, gardening, reading, and travelling when possible. Be also comments on her quarantine activity of bread making: “I, like thousands of others, started baking sourdough bread. I have two littles at home with me full-time while I am trying to work, which means I actually have much less time for new things, but so far everyone in our house has enjoyed the bread!” Many may not know that Be was born in Norway and has a sweet spot for the outdoors. 

Kathy Yang joins the school to teach Chinese 5 and AP Chinese. Before becoming a part of the School’s community, Yang partnered with Hugo Xiong, who also teaches Chinese at the School, on an interactive Chinese learning project called FluentKey, and she also taught at Chinese immersion elementary schools in downtown San Francisco. Although teaching online is a new experience for many teachers at the School, Yang mentions how “teaching online is actually not new for [her], because after [she] moved from China to the U.S. [she] still had her old students back in China who wanted [her] to keep teaching them, so [she]… [taught] them online [and] started about seven to eight years ago.” However, “she still feels distance… because of distance learning…  but really appreciates how supportive and appreciative [her] students are and the mutual respect [they] have for each other.”  Something interesting about Yang is that “[she] used to be a dog-only-person, but [her] cat Dum Dum totally changed [her]!” 

Shu Fen Pai joins the community as a middle and upper school Mandarin teacher. Before coming to the School, Pai taught all around the world including in Chicago, Beijing, and currently the Bay Area. At her previous school, Pai had to adjust to Zoom to teach her students because of the Covid-19 orders; therefore, it was “easy for [her] to [transition] into a new school on top of having schooling be all virtual.” Pai’s favorite activities include reading, listening to music, hiking, and watching movies with her family. Pai also got a “new pet” during quarantine: her stuffed animal owl, Hoot! 

The School also warmly welcomes Ayesha Numan as a new 9th and 10th grade English teacher. Distance learning has been a challenge for all, including Numan, who mentions how “a lot of [her] authenticity is often conveyed through emotive expression and body language which is often missing in the Zoom format.” However,  she mentions that her transition was made smoother as she “found Head-Royce and [her] colleagues to be very welcoming, especially [her] co-advisors and the English 9th and 10th teams.” Numan is definitely a crafty individual; she loves finding items at the thrift store to repurpose. For example, Numan completely flipped $14 dollar chairs she thrifted into gorgeous furniture pieces for her new place. Numan recently moved into a new place which she looks forward to decorating, and has moved over 13 times in her life. By now, Numan is “pretty much an expert in packing. Marie Kondo ain’t got nothing on me,” she says.