Confessions of a SSHS Grad

I can say without question that the time I spent at South Side High School changed my life forever.

Let me explain.

As a new kid in Rockville Centre in 1996 — my family moved from Brooklyn when I was 13 so I could attend a better high school — I was a stranger to everything outside the front door of my new home on Vanderveer Court. No friends. No idea how to make them, and heading into a new school where cliques and friend circles were already established, I figured I should get used to being a loner.

My guidance counselor, Mrs. Garmendia, suggested I participate in SMILE — Seniors Make it a Little Easier. A kind senior whose name escapes me, showed me around school, where my locker was and introduced me to some freshmen who were in the same boat as me. One of the freshmen I met that first day, I'm still close with today. When I was lost, this senior pointed the way. He even made sure the older kids didn't pick on me.

Mrs. Garmendia also recommended I join SADD — Students Against Destructive Decisions. I had never heard of it before, but I was open to anything that would help me make friends and fit in. I went on the AIDS walk with SADD that year, and once again, made friends that I still have 15 years later.

Fast forward to my senior year. I was an IB student, so I had to take a course called "Theory of Knowledge" with Mrs. Seidermann. That is one teacher from South Side I will never forget. The class was eye-opening and thought-provoking. The lesson was simple, Seidermann said. "Cogito, ergo sum!" was the phrase she said before every class, which is Latin for, "I think, therefore I am."

I took IB Physics, IB Calculus and IB Chemistry that year. I did the most thinking in Theory of Knowledge.

Mrs. Seidermann knew I enjoyed her class and recommended I take an elective she taught called, "Facing History and Ourselves."

I don't know if they still offer it, but it was a class dedicated to unlocking the horrors of the Holocaust and understanding the past so we can grow in the future. I'll never forget it. We interviewed a Holocaust survivor, and his stories of imprisonment in concentration camps were singed like a cattle brand on my brain. 

Now anything Seidermann suggested I took her up on. She chaired the Debate Club. I joined it. I still remember traveling to Northport High School for mock trial competitions and though I didn't go on to be a lawyer, it proved that I loved knowing the truth and proving it, which led me to my career as a journalist.

The teachers, classes and extracurricular programs I had at South Side shaped my life today. And though some people may look back at their time in high school and wish they had a do-over, I wouldn't change a thing.