Retiring Seaman teacher taught students to understand the world. Her impact goes beyond.

For nearly 40 years, Susan Sittenauer never left her space in the heart of Seaman High, and still the world has flowed through the classroom.

All the news of the world — from wars to elections to celebrity deaths — has been a daily, beginning-of-class ritual for the social studies teacher and the thousands of students she has taught during her tenure.

In these small group discussions, her students have taken stances, changed hearts and minds, and learned more about each other and the world around them.

It’s a small part of the legacy Sittenauer leaves as she finalizes her last couple of semesters of teaching before retiring at the end of the school year.

“You can’t think of Seaman High School and not think of Susan Sittenauer,” said Matt Tinsely, a business teacher at the school and former student of Sittenauer’s. “Susan has left an enduring mark on the hearts of thousands of students in her 39 years. She embodies what this school and community is all about.

"Her impact goes far beyond test scores in that she nurtures a love for learning and instills in her students the belief that they can achieve anything with hard work.”

Social studies was about understanding world in Susan Sittenauer's classes

Sittenauer, a Shawnee Heights graduate, had briefly entertained the idea of becoming an anesthesiologist — mostly because that title sounded cool — before she concreted her plans of one day becoming a teacher.

“I had the best social studies teachers in middle school and high school,” she said. “They really brought the world alive for me, and I wanted to emulate that in my life. Social studies, in studying humans and studying behavior and events of that nature, seemed like the right path. Now that I’ve been teaching more of law, I can bring more of what’s happening in the real world and have them apply the cases to the principles they’re learning in the classroom.”

The social studies teacher says she counts herself lucky she was able to find a job in the field locally, especially in an age when teachers found a shortage of open positions, not the other way around.

She was the first woman to be hired as a social studies teacher in Seaman High School history.

“There have still only been four since, but I was the first when I was hired in 1985,” Sittenauer said. “Typically, before that, a lot of them were male football or basketball coaches. I got hired without even being asked to coach anything, although I did end up coaching girls’ tennis for about eight years.”

It was early on that Sittenauer realized if she was going to find any success as an educator, she would have to continually adapt and challenge herself to become a better teacher.

“For me, one of the most important things has been to always try to learn and grow as an educator,” she said. “I feel fortunate to have been in a school district that encourages growth. When I first started teaching, I was mostly just teaching concepts, and it was later in my career when I realized how much more you do as an educator than just teaching concepts.”

Sittenauer, of course, taught students various government and history concepts as a social studies teacher, such as the structure of government, U.S. history and laws.

But rather than specific dates in history or Constitutional principles to memorize, social studies, for Sittenauer, was always about giving students a better understanding of the world around them, and giving them the tools to explore and discuss it.

“Social studies is a discipline that lends itself to having civil discussions,” she said. “This room has always been a room of nothing but positive energy, and we may not always agree, but we disagree agreeably. We have to respect each others’ rights to have differences of opinion. We’re not going to talk over each other, and we’re going to communicate in a way that’s positive and effective."

“People can’t, and are even afraid sometimes, of talking about controversial subjects, and that’s because they don’t have that skill to communicate in a way that’s positive,” she added.

Relationships have been key of Susan Sittenauer's 39 years at Seaman

Over the years, Sittenauer has found it hard to estimate the number of students she’s taught, although it must be well into the thousands.

Still, she’s maintained relationships with many of those students and colleagues, and she hopes to continue and build those relationships after she retires.

“I don’t always remember it, but the fact that I can tell a kid that they’re going to be something, and they remember me saying that years later when they’re 54 — you just don’t realize how what you say and how you treat people is remembered,” she said.

“I want to be remembered as a teacher who cared,” Sittenauer added. “Would I like them to remember each constitutional amendment or different events in history? Of course. But in this day and age, you can look that up in a second.”

Tinsley, the business teacher and member of the Seaman High class of 2000, said in Sittenauer’s nearly 40 years as a teacher, she was a mentor for him, more than a dozen student teachers and many more.

Sittenauer is someone who Seaman High students and faculty “will always hold in the highest regard.”

“Teaching is all about relationships and she maintains those relationships with her students long after they have graduated,” Tinsley said. “Her dedication to education and her students' lives leaves an indelible mark that extends far beyond the walls of her classroom.”

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at ‪785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Seaman High's Susan Sittenauer nears end of long social studies career