By AMANDA DAMON, CARLY LAPIDUS, and REBECCA SIMON
Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s blog, “Humans of New York,” the JerEcho has created its own ongoing feature dubbed “Humans of Jericho: Success Edition.” This feature aims to explore how Jericho High School students and faculty define success and how their definitions of success have impacted their lives.
Senior Erica Busch, left, “Two weeks ago I came in ninth place out of the top 200 horseback riders in the Northeast, so I felt pretty successful.”
English teacher Walter Kirby. “As a teacher, when I hear someone go, ‘Ahhh!’ that’s usually an indication that learning has occurred, and I really like that. I like that a lot more than seeing someone just getting the 100 or A+. I like to see and experience the ‘teaching moment’ or the ‘learning moment’ even more.”
Social Studies teacher Anthony Scarnati. “My definition of success has definitely shaped my career path. No question about it. When I became a teacher, I discovered that teaching is really a lot of fun. High school kids are really nice. I experience success every day in my classes because the students make me laugh, and that makes me feel successful.”
Junior Aashna Shah. “I feel like I’m successful every time I walk out of a class and I’ve learned something new.”
Social Studies teacher Mary Moran. “I love to see when the students that I help achieve success for themselves. I get tears in my eyes and I have my mommy moment even though I’m just their teacher.”
Social Studies teacher Aristea Kakounis. “I think the day I felt the most successful was the day that I graduated college, not because I finished, because that was the saddest day of my life since I loved college, but because I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. On graduation day I had eye contact with my mom, and when they told us to move our tassels, I looked at my mom and I said, ‘This is for you,’ and I felt successful because not only did I do something for myself, but I did something for my family that made them proud.”
Junior Dante Vigliotti. “I believe I am successful because I am alive today.”
Assistant Principal Dr. Dagoberto Artiles. “As a human being my main obligation is to help as many other human beings as possible. That’s what I define as success.”
English teacher Ken Darr. “Ray, a student I taught at East Meadow, came to me and was not doing well in class. So, I gave him ‘Fahrenheit 451’ to read. He loved it. The very next day he came to me and had read the book. He said, ‘Do you have more books like this?’ So I gave him ‘1984’ and he read that in three days. He was in my class, but he wasn’t doing anything anybody else was doing, but he loved to learn. A month later I got a note from him telling me, and I still have the note and I have it memorized, ‘Dear Mr. Darr, You’re the best teacher I ever had. I dropped out of school today. Be cool. –Ray.’ It’s one of my biggest failures and one of my biggest successes. I feel like I made a difference in his life, and at the same time, I failed because I didn’t make enough difference for him to stay in school. I’ve since heard that he’s doing very well.”
Junior Marissa Blaine. “I define success as being happy. I’d like to minor in art because it makes me happy.”
English teacher Nadine Bouler. “It’s the pursuit of learning that makes you successful, not that gold star that you got into a certain school. So the success is in the experience and less in the result.”
