When students look at teachers, they probably forget that they were also students at one point too. I had the opportunity to speak with Math teacher Andre Silva Dias, Science teacher Alyssa Bistrimovich and Science teacher Lauren DeNicola about their high school experiences. All three teachers answered the questions similarly, despite having graduated at different times. If you think about it, some things never change. For example, we still have cliques, proms, stereotypes about people in general, etc.
Andre Silva Dias’s high school experience
Q: What were you like in high school?
A: I was a very hard worker and I wanted to be as involved as possible in all my interests. I tried to join a lot of clubs and activities.
Q: Who was your favorite singer/band in high school? Did it change throughout high school or stay the same?
A: I liked “Pink,” “My Chemical Romance” and “Panic! At The Disco.” It did change throughout high school because I’d get a song stuck in my head and then it would change.
Q: What was your style like in high school?
A: I don’t know if I had a style – I would just dress for the weather: sweaters in the winter time and comfy t-shirts in the fall.
Q: What was your favorite thing about high school?
A: It was that I was able to see my friends every day and spend time with them, learn [new things] and the teachers that I had.
Q: Did you know that you wanted to be a teacher when you were in high school?
A: I knew that I wanted to be a teacher since I was in elementary school. In high school, I started branching out and thinking of other ideas because I realized when I was little I thought I wanted to be a teacher just because that’s one of the few jobs that I knew. In high school, I started thinking about engineering, teaching, physiology or something else, but I stuck with teaching because it’s just been what I always wanted to be.
Q: If you could go back in time and talk to your high school self what would you say?
A: I would tell myself not to worry so much about what others think.
Q: What was the biggest pop culture thing that happened when you were in high school?
A: Pink was coming out with some really good songs at that time. I think around that time Miley Cyrus was kind of branching out to create her image as opposed to the “Hannah Montana” thing. There was the whole scare when the Mayan calendar ended in 2012. People were saying that the world was going to end December 12, 2012, so that was a big scare. I still remember that day, I was at soccer practice and everyone [was] like ‘it’s gonna happen…it’s gonna happen, it’s the end of the world.’
Q: In your opinion, how has high school changed since you were in high school?
A: We still had the phones and social media, but the phones weren’t as high tech as they are now. I always had a flip phone. Senior year is when I got my first touch screen. I feel it was already a problem back then with social media and people just seeing content creators and thinking ‘I have to be like them’ or idolizing people and trying to emulate them. Now with AI it has gotten a lot worse. Technology keeps expanding so exponentially and developing so quickly and there are some good and bad applications.
Alyssa Bistrimovich’s high school experience
Q: What were you like in high school?
A: In high school I was pretty similar to how I am now. I enjoyed theater and hanging out with my friends. I was pretty outgoing.
Q: Who was your favorite singer/band in high school? Did it change throughout high school or stay the same?
A: In high school, I remember liking Luke Bryan and it never changed.
Q: What was your style like in high school?
A: I was more comfy. I always liked to wear sweatshirts and sweatpants.
Q: What was your favorite thing about high school?
A: My favorite thing about high school was getting to see my friends every day.
Q: Did you know that you wanted to be a teacher when you were in high school?
A: I did. I didn’t know what kind of teacher I wanted to be but I knew that I wanted to be a teacher.
Q: If you could go back in time and talk to your high school self what would you say?
A: I would say continue to be yourself. Everything will work out as it should.
Q: What was the biggest pop culture thing that happened when you were in high school?
A: “Jersey Shore” was really popular at the time. Everyone was doing the whole spiky hair Seaside Heights thing.
Q: In your opinion, how has high school changed since you were in high school?
A: I think social media presence [has changed]. We did have all that when I was in high school, but now everyone is very reliant on technology. We had technology when I was in high school, but it wasn’t as heavily used as it is today.
Lauren DeNicola’s high school experience
Q: What were you like in high school?
A: In high school, I was really studious and I focused a lot on academics. It was important to me to do well and to get into a good college. I was on the tennis team for four years and I loved music and got very into the time of boy bands. I would wait outside on line for tickets. I loved doing all those things and I loved just hanging out with friends. I always tried to keep myself surrounded by a good group of people and often.
Q: Who was your favorite singer/band in high school? Did it change throughout high school or stay the same?
A: “NSYNC” without question. They lined my walls, I saw them in concert probably 20 times and I skipped school when their albums came out. They are still near and dear to my heart. The beginning of my sophomore year they released their Christmas album and that was it. If they decide to go back on tour again I will be first in line!
Q: What was your style like in high school?
A: The butterfly clips in hair was a really common trend at that moment in my life. There was a lot going on with glittery T-shirts with words on them. The flare jeans have been sort of revived. The flare pants were the real jam. Old navy had released their performance fleece. I guess the best has stayed around, I was not particularly outlandish.
Q: What was your favorite thing about high school?
A: At the beginning of my high school experience, I was really self-conscious and I was very introverted. Then I read an article and that just struck such a chord in me that just a smile could mean so much to a person. I made a mission to walk with my face up and smile, whether I know you or not. My favorite part of high school was just engaging with people.
Q: Did you know that you wanted to be a teacher when you were in high school?
A: I always wanted to be a teacher and my mom was a substitute teacher and she told me teachers burnout, they get exhausted [and] they become tired. [She said] ‘You’re too smart, go be a doctor.’ I knew medicine wasn’t for me. I couldn’t walk into a doctor’s office without turning green. I [decided] to do biology. I went to college as a bio major and when I got to my senior year they put me in a lab for an internship and I hated it. I was uncomfortable, it was boring and I [knew] I needed to do me. I got in touch with Rutgers grad school. I went for education there and that landed me here. I’ve been [at SPFHS] ever since.
Q: If you could go back in time and talk to your high school self what would you say?
A: Stay on the path and don’t get caught up in little things. There’s so much drama that feels really big in high school, but once you get past it you realize it wasn’t really that big. [Also] just take it one day at a time, you can get through anything, you’re strong.
Q: What was the biggest pop culture thing that happened when you were in high school?
A: It was the boy band wave. That was huge pop culture! The millennium was massive. Y2K was a thing, people were legit terrified and thought life was gonna end on midnight January 1st, 2000 and the clock switched and life just went on.
Q: In your opinion, how has high school changed since you were in high school?
A: It’s really the technology, like at best if you wanted to do research you had to go to the library and get on an old school computer. You had to sign up for it and you only got on for a half an hour and Google didn’t exist yet. I graduated 2001, so it was just a different kind of time. In high school, no one had a phone, but the cool people had a beeper. It would beep and no one knew what it really meant cause you could only put like six digits on it.
That was a blast from the past! As the pop-punk princess (Avril Lavigne) sang in her song “Here’s to Never Growing Up” ‘Say, won’t you say forever, Stay, if you stay forever, Hey, we can stay forever young, Singing, Here’s to never growing up.’
