Chappaqua's Suchman is a Born Teacher

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y.-- Judy Suchman had been teaching and tutoring since 1986 and four years ago decided to open a learning center of her own.

Suchman said clients would ask her to recommend other tutors so she opened her own center, The Chappaqua Learning Center.

“I can recommend them but if I’m going to be recommending them, I might as well have them working for me,” Suchman said. “It just works better.”

Suchman’s hands-on approach at the Chappaqua Learning Center is what she says creates its success.

“I like to know what my students are doing, what materials they’re using and I can’t do that if they’re not in the office,” Suchman said. “It gives me the control so I can maintain the standard that I want.”

Suchman went to Brooklyn College then Cornell Medical School before realizing she didn’t want to practice medicine.

“When I came up here, I went to the school when the teacher was absent and said, ‘Gee I could teach this class…If there’s no teacher can I come in and teach it,’” Suchman said. “And I was told no you need a teaching degree so I went out and got one. Plain and simple. They said I need a teaching degree so I went and got one.”

Suchman took 26 credits a semester and completed her teaching degree and a masters of education from Pace University in just a year.

“I can’t believe I really did that,” Suchman said. “The second semester I student taught at Fox Lane High School in Mt. Kisco.”

Suchman taught at Fox Lane until 1989 and then taught at Hackley School, a private school in Tarrytown for two years before working at Horace Greeley High School, where she was a permanent substitute teacher.

Always the teacher, Suchman was often relied upon to explain the complexities of anatomy, biology and physiology.

“Believe it or not when I was in school I was the one that people always came to for help,” Suchman said. “I was always teaching. I think I’m a born teacher.”

 

 

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