Ryne Ponsler
High School Spanish Teacher
Hometown: Ladysmith
High school graduated from: Ladysmith
College: Ryne earned his Bachelors in Spanish Education from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Previous employment: Most recently, Ryne was the Spanish Teacher at Darlington High School, and prior to that, was the Spanish Teacher at River Valley High School.
Family: Ryne lives in Dodgeville with his wife Katie, their son and daughter Ralph and Mildred, as well as their dog Alice.
Hobbies/Free time interests: Ryne enjoys reading, hiking in parks near home such as Governor Dodge and Blue Mound, and traveling.
What attracted you to apply in #PointerNation?: I was so excited to apply to and become a part of the staff in Mineral Point. It’s an academically strong district that seems to thrive on the small-town comradery of the town itself.
Quotable: “I believe that education is an amazing tool that allows for tremendous community growth. By investing in our students, we allow them to learn to function better as adults within the context of what our communities need. It also affords us the opportunity to bring all communities closer together. The foreign language classroom truly exemplifies this goal. Students engage with a new language, which holds within it undeniable links to other cultures, and allows them to make the other/unknown into something familiar and relatable. As cultural contact increases thanks to travel, immigration, and economic reasons I feel that it is important for all students to develop the tools to appropriately interact with people from other cultures. Although not everyone will end up needing the skills developed in my classroom that deal more directly with the Hispanic culture they will still be able to transfer these skills to new instances in which they find themselves.”