Her Story
Susan Moore Haas discovered she was a teacher long before she ever stood in front of a classroom. In the summer of 1967, as a teenager giving swimming lessons to two four-year-old boys in her backyard pool, she heard one of them call out, “Teacher, teacher, can I play too?” That single sentence, spoken by a child who had simply been watching her work, planted something that would define the next three decades of her life.
Haas earned her B.A. in Multiple Subject Education from the University of Redlands in 1975 and her M.S. in Early Childhood Education from Pepperdine University in 1977, writing her thesis on the relationship between reading achievement and Piaget’s conservation tasks in first and second graders. She began teaching that same year in the Corona-Norco Unified School District in Southern California, and by 1986 had settled into the kindergarten classroom at John Adams Elementary School in Corona, where she has taught ever since.
Along the way, Haas became one of the most sought-after voices in early literacy instruction nationally, serving since 1993 as a presenter for the California Elementary Education Association and consulting for two years as a literacy expert for The Wright Group. She authored and published two books used by teachers and parents across the country, A Big Day Is Coming, which introduces incoming students and families to a kindergarten classroom, and SummerDays, designed to keep parents engaged in literacy over summer break. By 1999, her twenty-fifth year in the classroom, she had been named California Teacher of the Year, a Disney American Teacher of the Year finalist, Riverside County Teacher of the Year, Walmart Teacher of the Year, and Corona-Norco Unified School District Teacher of the Year — all within a single remarkable year.
Beyond the Classroom
Haas built her classroom around a signature cast of rituals that turned five-year-olds into a genuine community of learners. Her class publishes its own weekly newspaper, the “Gingerbread News,” reported and illustrated by the children themselves and delivered by student “newspaper carriers” in hats and badges who parade the halls shouting, “Read All About It!” Twice a year her students mount full theatrical productions for parents and community members, including “Rock and Roll with Mother Goose,” complete with programs, costumes, sign language, and a Mother Goose “Big Book” the children design and illustrate themselves.
Her classroom mascot, a stuffed dog named Spot, has become a minor local celebrity: he travels home with a different child every few nights, has appeared in the local newspaper, attended Brownie meetings and football games, co-piloted a news-radio airplane, and visited the dentist, all chronicled in a running journal each child writes and illustrates about his adventures. It’s a small, playful mechanism for something larger — bringing the wider community into a five-year-old’s world one home visit at a time.
Beyond her own classroom, Haas has spent over a decade traveling the country training “hundreds” of early-childhood educators in research-based literacy strategies, brain-compatible classroom design, and behavior-modification techniques, all built from the methods she developed and refined at John Adams Elementary. Her home-reading program, Lap-Reading, is used by teachers and families nationwide. She has mentored teachers within her own district for over a decade — selected as Mentor Teacher in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1997 — and at least two former parent volunteers in her own classroom were inspired by her to become teachers themselves.
Philosophy Into Practice
Haas’s philosophy centers on a metaphor she returns to often: like an oyster patiently nurturing a grain of sand into a pearl, a teacher’s influence on a child unfolds slowly and rarely announces itself, but it endures. She sees kindergarten as the foundation on which every later stage of learning is built, and treats her students as, in her words, natural scientists, voracious language users, and creative thinkers who simply need an environment built to let those instincts flourish.
“I believe there is no greater profession than that of teaching. It is a gift wrapped with love and given from one individual to another… The hands of teachers weave the fabric of the future.”— Susie Haas, “Who Are You?”
She resists rigid, one-size-fits-all instruction in favor of a threat-free, child-centered classroom where risk-taking is expected and each child’s individual accomplishments, not comparisons to classmates, are what get celebrated. At the same time, she is unsentimental about rigor: twenty-five years into the whole-language-versus-phonics debate, she has landed firmly on blending both, arguing that literacy instruction must be systematic and explicit as well as joyful and meaningful.
“I believe all children deserve to be taught in an environment that will promote, value and nurture their natural desire to learn… The dreams of children become more vivid when cradled in the hands of a teacher.”— Susie Haas, Philosophy of Teaching
In Her Own Words
“The magnitude of Andrew’s words have remained with me for over three decades. This precocious child was the first to honor me with the title of ‘teacher.'”— Professional Biography
“Just as a twisting kaleidoscope creates a new design with each rotation while retaining its vibrant colors, each year I have modified my teaching style while preserving my enthusiasm and love of my profession.”— Professional Biography
“My destiny is to teach. I am blessed with an insight that enables me to look at what a child can do, not at what a child cannot do.”— Who Are You
“Each year I ask my kindergarten students, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Although I receive a variety of answers from astronaut to zookeeper, many of my children answer ‘a teacher.'”— Who Are You
“It is my hope that the teachers, parents, administrators, and the children that I have taught through the decades will say: ‘It is her dash that made all the difference.'”— Who Are You
What Others Said
“I have watched in awe many times as Susie transforms children with weak academic skills, poor motivation, and damaged self-esteem into bright, successful, and confident young students who love school and learning.”— Steve Rachunok, Principal, John Adams Elementary School
“Susie Haas represents everything the National Teachers Hall of Fame should honor: a caring teacher, a skilled instructor, a curriculum expert, an educational leader, a role model, a national speaker, and an ambassador for the profession.”— Linda Semple, Kindergarten Teacher, John Adams Elementary School
“Mrs. Haas not only keyed in on my strengths, but built a solid foundation for growth and made learning fun and an adventure. She was like a second mom to me.”— Jeremy Barnett, Former Student
“She talks about her joy of teaching and how she believes that ‘teaching is a gift wrapped in love.’ I urge you to select Susie Haas as one of this year’s inductees to the National Teachers Hall of Fame as she is a gift to our profession.”— Linda Bouman, Director of Learning Support Services, Corona-Norco Unified School District
“It is because of Susie’s inspiration that I myself have chosen the profession of teaching… It so rarely in life that one person can bring so much positive change in another’s life. Susie Haas has been that in mine.”— Devi Filip, Parent
“Above all, Susie Haas loves children and they love her. I give her my strongest of recommendations.”— Pedro E. Garcia, Ed.D., Superintendent, Corona-Norco Unified School District