By: Anya Kakarlapudi & Laasya Kakumanu
February 25, 2025
The most impactful time of a person’s life is their childhood. During youth, kids learn about everything and are influenced by whatever is around them. Seven Hills Middle School teachers are all very different now than they were as children, but they still have significant connections to their early lives.
Growing up, eighth-grade history teacher Ms. Neidlein-Dial loved spending time around people. She loved talking to friends and family and was always interested in people. In class, she tries to interpret how every student learns and teaches them in a way they will understand.
One activity she enjoyed a lot was reading. “Before the phone, I was the kind of person, if I would happen to be somewhere, I would read the back of a cereal box,” she said while talking about her passion for reading. Now, Ms. Neidlein-Dial has continued her love for reading, and she reads every night before bed.
Mr. Waskowitz, head of the Seven Hills Middle School, loved to ski and enjoyed music. Thinking back, his middle school experience was uncomfortable, and he believes it’s a time to find yourself as a person. A considerable part of his life was music. Mr. Waskowitz played the trumpet, piano, and base guitar. Although he doesn’t play these instruments anymore, he appreciates every genre of music.
Skiing is his favorite extracurricular activity, passed on from his mom. Most weekends of young Mr. Waskowitz’s life were filled with skiing, and he is pleased to have passed it down to his daughters. “I’m so glad she taught me to do that because it’s something I passed down,” he said.
Ms. Hayes, a 7th-grade English teacher, loved to act and participate in theater. She also enjoyed working with her peers in sports and everything related to English. As a middle schooler, she did not enjoy it and recently said, “It’s hard to love middle school in middle school.” Ms. Hayes enjoys spending time with kids and making a difference in their lives.
Watching our middle school productions is one of Ms. Hayes’s favorite activities. She loves the feeling of seeing young actors on stage and the sound of the applause they get. It brings her a sense of nostalgia for when she was on stage. Watching these plays reminds her of the days she had in theater.
As a kid, Mr. McGarvey, a 6th-grade geography teacher, loved playing sports. Most mornings, he and his friends met to play basketball. As a student, he thought middle school was terrifying. He even told his parents he would never become a teacher. “I swore to them I would never go into education,” he said.
Running and biking are activities that Mr. McGarvey has participated in since childhood. Having a dad as a football coach makes it hard to quit football, but Mr. McGarvey quit to pursue his love for running. He ran cross country in high school and ran nationwide as an adult. After a knee injury, he started biking more.
As a child, Ms. Suer, a seventh-grade science teacher, participated in a variety of activities such as track, band, and gymnastics. All of her siblings did band in high school, and Ms. Suer wanted to follow in their footsteps. In middle school, she thought it was fun and awkward.
Traveling is still one of Ms. Suer’s favorite activities. She and her husband are both teachers, so they travel internationally quite a bit over the summers. She said, “I loved bike riding because it was outside and it was my thing I did with just my dad.” She still enjoys spending time with her family today.
All the teachers are different people from who they were as children, but they still carry some of the same enjoyment of certain activities. They all found something that brought them happiness at a young age, and it has stuck with them for many years and will stick for many more to come.