New Science Teachers Enter the Lab

By LUCAS PASCHKE

Mr. Christopher Buonocore. *Photo: Lucas Paschke*

New year, new teachers!

The science department introduced a number of new teachers this year, including Ms. Avanel Cunningham, Ms. Princessa Dominique, Ms. Natifa Griffith, Ms. Jiahui Lian, Ms. Tiffany Peat, Mr. Greg Salwen, Mr. Andy Xu, Ms. Zoe Piccolo, and Mr. Christopher Buonocore.

We sat down with Mr. Buonocore and Ms. Piccolo to learn more about who they were and what brought them to Midwood.

Mr. Buonocore, a Chemistry and Forensics teacher, grew up in Staten Island. He attended Tottenville High School, a school of over 3,000 students, so the large-school environment of Midwood may seem familiar to him.

“My first impression of Midwood was just, wow,” Mr. Buonocore said. “The students are super-involved and want to constantly learn. That’s all I want as a teacher and for my students.”

Before Midwood, Mr. Buonocore was a long-term substitute at Susan Wagner High School in Staten Island. “I didn’t really get the full experience of Wagner, as last year was fully online,” Mr. Buonocore said. “But as of now, I definitely like Midwood. It’s awesome!”

Teaching was not always the career path Mr. Buonocore wanted to go down. If it wasn’t for one of his teachers in high school, he might never have entered the profession.

“I had this really good chemistry teacher, and I'm still friends with him today,” he said. “He was just the happiest, funniest person, and that was something I wanted to mimic in a classroom of my own.”

From his prior experience, Mr. Buonocore sees humor as a critical component of his teaching style. “I like to incorporate a lot of humor into my lessons,” he said. “I’m kind of funny, and I think my students think so, too.”

In his eyes, the job is not just about love for the material. “At the end of the day, I love chemistry,” he explained. “But what I love even more is teaching chemistry and making those valuable connections with the students. It’s all about the students.”

“A lot of students see teaching as us just standing in front of the room delivering material, but it is much more than that,” Mr. Buonocore said. “Students learn differently, so I have to adapt to deliver material in a lot of different ways.”

Even with a stressful work schedule, Mr. Buonocore still finds time to do things that he’s been passionate about since he was a teenager. “I like to play competitive Digimon card games,” he said. “On Tuesday nights, we have weekly tournaments at the local game store in Staten Island. It just takes me back to the enjoyment of my childhood.”

It all comes back to humor. “Always just remember to laugh a little bit,” he said. “Times are tough, and everyone deserves some element of enjoyment.”

Ms. Zoe Piccolo is a first-year Regents Earth Science and Natural Disasters teacher. She attended LaGuardia High School in Manhattan before going to Cornell University for her undergraduate degree, then Pratt for her Master’s.

“I taught, and will probably teach again, a virtual course at Pratt Institute called Sustainability by Design for a mix of undergraduate and graduate students,” she said.

One of Ms. Piccolo’s biggest passions is the environment. “I worked on climate resiliency projects for the city, and I really enjoyed the mission of the work,” she said. “It’s something that I wanted to carry over into a potential teaching career, hence where I am now.”

But Ms. Piccolo felt like something was missing from her previous year in climate resiliency. “I felt like I was missing an interpersonal connection with people,” she said. “The mission was getting lost in the day-to-day. But here at Midwood teaching Earth Science, it feels more tangible and direct, which allows me to pass it on to my students.”

Ms. Piccolo’s aspirations range farther out than Earth Science. “I want to prepare my students for experiences that will happen outside of school,” she said. “Skills that can go across different industries should be emphasized, like learning how to make a spreadsheet or give a presentation. I was not taught these skills in school, so I might as well make a change now to prepare students for what I missed out on.”

Starting as a teacher comes with an adjustment period. “I am up very early in the morning and up late at night working,” she said. But with time, she feels that the work will get easier as she prepares for the rest of this school year and the many school years to come.

Being on a strict Regents lesson plan and course load, Ms. Piccolo feels like things can get overwhelming since there is so much material to get through in a relatively short amount of time. But with Forensics, “we can have a little more fun and be more creative to talk about things that are of interest to students. I want students to feel engaged in my classes and feel like they have something to look forward to.”

But most of all, Ms. Piccolo wants her students to wonder about the unknown. “I want them to achieve a level of understanding and mastery while always being curious about what hasn’t been taught yet,” she said.