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Mr. Klear (7th & 8th ELA)
Mr. Daniel Klear
7th & 8th Grade ELA
(Sept. 21, 2026 to Feb. 5, 2027)
7th & 8th Grade ELA
(Sept. 21, 2026 to Feb. 5, 2027)
Hello! I am so excited to join the upper school at Woodside as a 7th and 8th grade ELA teacher this year.
As a Bay Area native who grew up in Half Moon Bay, I understand and appreciate the kind of tight-knit, tradition-rich community I'm proud to now be a part of here in Woodside. My connection to Woodside is personal and close to home: I'm a proud parent to two students here at WES, Ollin and Luna, and my wife Sugeily is WES alum who grew up here in Woodside. Beyond the classroom, I also proudly serve this community as a volunteer Little League baseball coach.
I hold credentials in both ELA and Social Studies. I honed my craft student teaching middle school in East Palo Alto. There, I had the chance to work with a diverse range of learners with a broad range of needs. My teaching style is student-centered, driven by essential data for each student individually, and anchored by fostering a growth mindset above all else.
While I've come to teaching as a profession after working in multiple fields, teaching has always been a part of what I do. Growing up I worked as a swim instructor, and as I earned my B.A. in Anthropology, I worked as a student-instructor at archaeological field schools in Ecuador and Belize. Even during the decade I spent working in tech, that instinct never left me, and I come to the classroom with the real-world perspectives I gained there. I’m fortunate to be able to lean on these experiences in the classroom today, because every student arrives with different expectations and ideas about themselves and their futures, and I want to meet each of them where they are. Helping a learner of any age find their own way into something they're growing passionate about is truly what I live to do.
As an ELA teacher specifically, I love to encourage students to engage deeply with stories wherever they find them. History, novels, video games, comics, film and television can all be treated as literature worth taking seriously; the more equipped a learner is to engage critically with these stories, the richer their life becomes. Further, I believe the most important thing I can offer young writers in today’s world is a fundamental belief that their ideas and experiences matter, and are worth expressing in their own true, unique voice.
As a Bay Area native who grew up in Half Moon Bay, I understand and appreciate the kind of tight-knit, tradition-rich community I'm proud to now be a part of here in Woodside. My connection to Woodside is personal and close to home: I'm a proud parent to two students here at WES, Ollin and Luna, and my wife Sugeily is WES alum who grew up here in Woodside. Beyond the classroom, I also proudly serve this community as a volunteer Little League baseball coach.
I hold credentials in both ELA and Social Studies. I honed my craft student teaching middle school in East Palo Alto. There, I had the chance to work with a diverse range of learners with a broad range of needs. My teaching style is student-centered, driven by essential data for each student individually, and anchored by fostering a growth mindset above all else.
While I've come to teaching as a profession after working in multiple fields, teaching has always been a part of what I do. Growing up I worked as a swim instructor, and as I earned my B.A. in Anthropology, I worked as a student-instructor at archaeological field schools in Ecuador and Belize. Even during the decade I spent working in tech, that instinct never left me, and I come to the classroom with the real-world perspectives I gained there. I’m fortunate to be able to lean on these experiences in the classroom today, because every student arrives with different expectations and ideas about themselves and their futures, and I want to meet each of them where they are. Helping a learner of any age find their own way into something they're growing passionate about is truly what I live to do.
As an ELA teacher specifically, I love to encourage students to engage deeply with stories wherever they find them. History, novels, video games, comics, film and television can all be treated as literature worth taking seriously; the more equipped a learner is to engage critically with these stories, the richer their life becomes. Further, I believe the most important thing I can offer young writers in today’s world is a fundamental belief that their ideas and experiences matter, and are worth expressing in their own true, unique voice.