“I love getting to know all the students and seeing their hidden talents in art come out.” – Mrs. Celia Gollub
Class: Art Experience, Printmaking & Photography and Honors
About/Description: “They can expect to have fun. They can expect it to be interesting, and they can expect it to be a relaxed environment where they can learn something new that maybe they didn’t know about themselves. They can expect a lot of different projects, and it’s very fast-paced, and it moves a lot, a lot of moving parts.”
CAPTION: “My dog Cassius [had] just passed his doggie training class. He was a crazy boxer, I think they just wanted to get rid of him because he was a handful!”
FUN FACTS:
- “If I was not a teacher, I would probably be doing something with animals. Maybe animal rescue, maybe I would be a veterinarian. I’m sure something that helps animals in any way because I love them so much.”
“I don’t ever want anyone to feel as if their time has been wasted here. It’s precious, and I genuinely want to make the most of every one of those 56 minutes.” – Mrs. Stacie Collins
Class: English 1 Honors, English 4: Composition and Popular Genre Studies
About Me: “I like planning. I like thinking about here’s our end goal, here’s where I need to get my students to. How do I do that? And so thinking about all the moves and all the scaffolding that needs to take place in order to get us to that end goal. So I enjoy all of that. And then there’s real joy in the delivery of the lesson.”
“It’s nice spending time with my students, and I don’t know if there’s a better feeling than when you see the light bulb go off and you realize that something clicks and somebody makes some profound point, or somebody asks a question that drives somebody else to some sort of deeper understanding.”
CAPTION: “It’s a picture my sister-in-law took of me.”
FUN FACTS:
- “So my original plan was not to become a teacher. Plan A was to be the shortstop for the Mets. But I can’t hit or throw or catch, so that was never going to pan out for me. So I just love the Mets from afar.”
- “Favorite movie is probably The Shawshank Redemption. I think it’s a near-perfect movie. And one of the very few times you will hear me say that the movie, I think, is genuinely better than the book that it’s based on. I love the film version of Pride and Prejudice as well, with Keira Knightley, and I love that book.”
“I love my students, and I will always think of them as my priority in the class, as opposed to myself or what I am wanting or thinking about, as I always get a read on what the kids need.” – Ms. Christine Massaro
Class: Constitutional Law Honors, American Studies, History of US through Film Media, US History 2, Sociology
About/Description: “My favorite thing about teaching is getting to learn about students’ interests inside and outside the classroom. And because I teach 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, I feel like I get to meet a lot of students through teaching. I think it helps me get an understanding of what it’s like to be a high school student today and understand the students better by having so many different students in different grades and backgrounds. There’s a lot of different pressures that they face, and I want to be able to understand what their experience is like so that I can help them best.”
CAPTION: “It shows my personality. It was by the school photographer [and] it just shows my energy. It epitomizes my enthusiasm.”
FUN FACTS:
- “I designed and built my car online completely. [It was a] Jeep Wrangler that I built, a specified engine. I had a little bit of experience during the pandemic. I learned that I was into these things, and I started looking into cars and building things online. So then I designed one last year, and I am very happy with my work. Most people wouldn’t know that about me. I’m a gearhead.”
- “Because I’m a teacher, Peer Mentors advisor, technology mentor, Varsity Club advisor, youth minister at my church, councilwoman in my town, I only get about four to five hours of sleep a night. [It’s] organized chaos.”
