Her happy place Suneet Kharey on discovering the teacher within
Lindsay Yakimyshyn
Associate Editor, ATA Magazine
AS A YOUNG CHILD, Suneet Kharey would spend weekend afternoons creating a school of her own. The classroom: her playroom. The students: a cuddly menagerie of stuffed animals, and occasionally her mom, whom Kharey would quiz to ensure she met the requisite learning objectives. “To me, that was the most fun activity that I could do,” Kharey recalls with a laugh. “I should mention that I was an only child.” Now a teacher at Chestermere High School, Kharey sees that she had the hallmarks of a teacher all along. It just took her awhile to fully embrace it. WHERE TO? Kharey grew up in Calgary, where her parents, immigrants from India, instilled in her the value of education. Post-secondary studies were an expectation. In high school, she gravitated toward the sciences and initially set her sights on dentistry, starting a biology degree at the University of Lethbridge (U of L). Even as she began to question that path due to a lack of fulfillment, she stayed in the sciences, joining the U of L premed club and the iGEM compe- tition team. This experience made her feel like she could make a difference and spurred an interest in bioethics. Driven by that interest, Kharey completed her biology degree and began studying philosophy as a
step toward law school, before stepping back to con- sider where her skills and interests could make the most meaningful difference. Unsure of her next step, she turned to a trusted academic advisor, who—to Kharey’s surprise—sug- gested she take the U of L’s Orientation to Teaching course. After all, she already had experience with the university’s science camps. “I’d always respected teachers, but I never pic- tured myself as one, until I saw that I could be the representation I wished I’d had growing up.” She took a chance, signed up for the course and soon found herself in a classroom, loving every minute of it. Nice job, teacher Right from the start, Kharey understood that teaching is about more than content. “Teaching is really all about relationships,” Kharey says, “Even now, students come up to me and say they might not like math, but they’ll do it for me, because we’ve built that connection.” Her mentor teacher, Tim Folkersen, quickly rec- ognized Kharey’s ability to connect with students. In particular, he recalls how strongly one student who had lacked confidence in math responded to Kharey. “This girl had to move, and I remember she was devastated, just devastated, because she wasn’t going to get to have Suneet as her teacher anymore. She had only been teaching a week, maybe two,” Folkersen says. “I said to Suneet, ‘Good job. Nice job, teacher.’”
ATA Magazine Winter 2026
55
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online