High school serves as a transitional period full of personal growth, obstacles, and self-acceptance for many. For Creative Writing and English Support teacher Maria Angelone, those four years brought a mixture of memorable achievements and personal struggles that continue to shape her perspective as a teacher today.
Angelone grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, and attended Cheltenham High School, a large and diverse campus just outside Philadelphia that serves more than 2,000 students. Due to the school’s diversity, President George H. W. Bush decided to speak at her graduation ceremony, handing Angelone her diploma. “I had to walk through a metal detector to graduate,” Angelone said.
As a member of the Class of ’89, Angelone earned top grades throughout high school while also balancing a busy academic schedule that included four years of honors Latin and art classes, her personal favorites. “The one place I could always relax in high school was my art class,” Angelone said.
Outside the classroom, she juggled multiple friend groups, played basketball, contributed to the yearbook, regularly went jogging, and drove around with friends blasting to ’80s music. Angelone’s friends also drove giant boat cars around town while listening to popular music.
“I had my academic friends, and then I had my group of friends that I would go to parties with,” Angelone said. “I actually feel like my high school years were probably the most social of my life in a certain way. I had more friends than ever.”
She also spent a lot of time socializing with friends around school. “If I wasn’t in the library, I was in the quad smoking cigarettes, which is wild to think that you could do that,” Angelone said.
The most memorable aspect of her high school experience, though, centered around a long-term relationship. “I had a crush on him when he was 14, and I was 13,” Angelone said. The two began dating in her junior and his senior year, starting an on-and-off relationship that spanned nine years across rival schools.
“That relationship was like a high, low, high, low, but there’s an intensity to teenage love that I think is unique,” Angelone said. “I couldn’t believe how happy he could make me, and also how mad and sad and confused he could make me. All the feelings were fun, even if I was crying.”
Looking back on those years, Angelone has found the value in the emotional depth those experiences triggered. “It feels like there’s less intensity in the emotions as I get older, so I look back on that wistfully, when I felt so much, so strongly,” Angelone said.
Many of Angelone’s favorite high school moments involved spending time at close friends’ houses. “We spent every weekend at my friend Todd’s house,” she said. “We’d play Todd’s piano, and we’d sing together.”
Alongside her positive memories, high school also brought heavy academic stress. “I was so academically inclined, and I put a lot of pressure on myself,” Angelone said. Without pressure from her parents regarding grades, her drive to succeed was entirely self-driven, often resulting in severe anxiety and stress over her assignments.
Looking back on her experience now, Angelone says she focused too heavily on grades rather than genuine learning. “I wished I cared more about what I was learning and showed more curiosity instead of just wanting competition,” she said.
However, Angelone found relief working alongside classmates, studying together on projects like take-home calculus tests. “We’d go to our friend Tracy’s house, and we would all do the tests together and bake cookies. Even though [we] weren’t supposed to, we all were truly still learning the material, but we were doing it together,” she said.
Working with students at M-A, Angelone observes these similar pressures regarding perception and self-image around her. “You care what other people think when no one’s thinking about you because they’re too busy thinking about themselves. That’s true of all teenagers all the time,” Angelone said. “Nobody cares. Just be weird. Be you.”
When asked to summarize her high school experience in a single word, Angelone described it as explorative. “It was a time to try new things all the time, and I loved that,” Angelone said.
Considering what advice she would pass down to her younger self, Angelone thought of her friend Todd, who passed away five years ago. “I sort of lost touch with him and have big regrets about that because he was a big, important part of my life,” Angelone said. Her core piece of advice: stay in touch with your Todd.
I really enjoyed reading this! Having Ms. Angelone as my English Support teacher, I can definitely see how much she cares about her students. She’s always supportive, understanding, and makes the classroom feel comfortable. I think this article does a great job showing who she is not only as a teacher, but also as a person.