After years of working in the theater industry and selling her own line of baby food, English teacher Sara Snow uses her experiences to not only teach, but open students’ minds.

“I started off working as an actor’s manager in the theater. That was my first job out of college,” Snow said. “There were about six or eight of us in the company, and you’d sit in an office in the West End of London and spend a lot of time on the phone, talking to casting directors.”

As an agent, Snow was in charge of about 100 actors, directors and playwrights. Part of her job was also being compassionate and empathetic to her clients.

“Being an actor is a really tough job because most of the time it’s rejection, so part of an agent’s job is consoling their actors and saying, ‘You’re wonderful darling, you’re wonderful!’” Snow said.

After marrying an American man, Snow moved to the United States and found her next career opportunity: baby food.

“When I came here from Europe, I was very struck by how fussy many of the younger American children were about what they would or wouldn’t eat,” Snow said.

When Snow did some research about the factors that affect a child’s attitude towards different foods, she discovered something that intrigued her as a new mother.

“I found out that if you expose children to a variety of tastes, textures and colors when they first start eating solid food rather than just white and beige, they become more receptive to different foods later on, and I thought, ‘Gosh, there’s a huge opportunity here,’” Snow said.

After going through the food safety and kitchen regulations, Snow began selling her frozen organic baby food through Whole Foods, continuing as an entrepreneur for five years until her product was in all the Massachusetts Whole Foods market. She then had the opportunity to market across the states.

“I thought, ‘I just don’t have the energy for this.’ To be an entrepreneur, you have to really want money, but I ended up liking the mission more. I much preferred that sort of intellectual side than the business side,” Snow said.

Snow’s most recent transition was from businesswoman to high school English teacher.

“The reason I like the teenage population is because they’re just beginning to grapple with more abstract concepts, and that really fascinates me. You have the chance to really try to show them how they can open up their minds and open up their hearts,” Snow said.

One thing Snow would like to impart to her students is the ability to read deeper into a text than just the words on the page.

“There’s a whole world of thinking out there, where the exterior and the interior are often two different things going on. I think everyone has an ‘aha’ moment when they suddenly realize that there’s a whole message behind a text,” Snow said.

Snow’s passion for analyzing and understanding literature began when she was in high school, while reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night.

“I remember my English teacher was saying, ‘Yes, but what is it about water lilies?’ and I thought about this idea that they’re beautiful on the surface, but if you look underneath you see roots and it’s kind of icky and murky and not at all what they seem to be,” Snow said.

Snow said coming into this job with more life experience gives her a better perspective on her students’ anxieties.

“I see one of my jobs is to sometimes lower the level of anxiety, to get people to see beyond the next two or three or four years,” Snow said. “It’s more about who you are than where you went to college.”

Snow believes being a manager and constantly on the phone with a client taught her to use her voice in a way that is meaningful and important.

“One of the things I worry about a lot nowadays with texting and emailing and social media is that people are not learning to use their voice on the phone,” Snow said. “Not just face to face, but that skill of when you’re not seeing the person, you’re just using your ears—I worry that is being lost now.”

Snow’s many experiences have also made her someone to go to for advice and wisdom outside of the class curriculum.

“There’s an aspect of studying English that teaches you about life and how to cope with problems that arise in your life,” Snow said. “One of the things about coming into this job when you’re a bit older is that you’ve seen a bit of life, and you’ve been around the block a few times and had a few more upsets and disappointments.”

Sofia Tong and Sophia Rintell can be contacted at [email protected].