It might be difficult to picture your teacher blasting a record or jumping at a concert, but music was also an important part of their lives as they were growing up and even now, it continues to play a high note.
“I identified myself with music,” math teacher Oana Pascu said. Pascu grew up in Romania when ’80s rock was popular. She began to listen to Bon Jovi and other popular bands at the time, most of whom she learned about from her brother.
According to Pascu, a good song would have to have “good lyrics and melody,” she said. Her favorite is Bon Jovi’s “Just Older.” Pascu’s parents not only paid for her concert tickets but also drove her to the venues and waited outside for the concert to finish.
Pascu’s tastes have expanded to include jazz and classical, though Bon Jovi is still close to her heart. “A part of it now is nostalgia,” she said. She also keeps up with modern music through her students. One of her favorite new bands is Jacqueline in the Box.
Social studies teacher Daniel Tillman discovered music while flipping through channels one day as a young child. He landed on The Grammy Awards. “I said ‘Oh my God, this is beautiful,’” he said.
Before that, Tillman said he listened mostly to Christian music, as popular rock and R&B songs were considered “dangerous.” Soon he opened his ears to Aretha Franklin, Bread, Willie Nelson, Kansas and “the Beatles, always, always, always,” he said.
Currently Tillman, who describes himself as a “spiritual person,” listens to contemporary Christian music. “[Music] has to respond to my heart. At this point I have a lot to be optimistic about and I’m looking for songs that say ‘life has been happy,’” he said.
Social studies teacher Lisa Shuman also has a very diverse music palette. She listens to many international artists, such as Portuguese fado (traditional Portuguese folk music) singer Dulce Pontes. “Ten years ago I expanded to international music, Middle Eastern to French. It was always sort of in my blood,” she said.
Shuman was born into a musical home—her parents were both singers. “My parents were old fashioned. They listened to ’40s music,” she said. Shuman is grateful for the environment in which she was brought up because it is the source for her current interest in singing. “I sing international. I’ve done performance,” she said. She has even made a demo.
In high school, Shuman listened to musicians like Fleetwood Mac, Billie Joel and Sting. “I was eclectic, where I would go to pop at the time, to musical theater, to classical.” She started going to concerts in college, and now prefers small lounges downtown where “the atmosphere is more intimate,” she said.
Another performer, Assistant Principal English Eric Grossman, has a guitar in his office. “I just always loved rock ’n’ roll,” he said. In first grade, he used to listen to classic rock bands like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Clash and Sly Stone for hours on the radio. “[Music] was everything to me, everything I cared about,” he said. Once, Grossman skipped school to see the Rolling Stones’ first performance of their “Tattoo You” tour.
Grossman decided learn to play guitar at age 10. “It was the first thing I really did for myself and not for my parents or anyone else,” he said. He took part in several bands throughout his college career, playing in venues like CBGB. He also spent a summer in the Czech Republic, recording a demo with his college band.
“Every single passion I had was arrived by music,” he said. He started reading about music and became a bibliophile, which led to his eventually becoming an English teacher. You can find Grossman in his office, playing his guitar or listening to his latest musical interests: the Hold Steady, the Go-Betweens and the Drive-By Truckers.
Although these teachers’ tastes may have changed or expanded from their adolescent days, music continues to be an essential and distinctive part of their lives.
