Engineer becomes teacher

Every year, Big Spring High School gets new teachers, and all of them have interesting stories when students get to know them. Anthony Casella began working in room 137 last Dec. 1 to replace Dwain Messersmith as a tech ed teacher. He is currently teaching intro to drafting, architectural design, and wood tech. During the remainder of the first semester he also taught engineering and robotics.

Prior to teaching he had a long career as an engineer, which is what originally brought the Philadelphia native to Cumberland County in the early 90’s. After some time, he left the company that brought him here and started his own, where he was the CEO. When he and his business partner decided to retire, they sold the company and Casella took this as an opportunity to pursue another career.

Casella went to college and graduated with a masters degree in education. Prior to graduating, he spent his time as a student teacher working in the business department with Cherie Powell. “[I want students to know] I am very easy going, and try to use real world applications from experience in my classes.” said Casella.

“Teaching is a total career change for me and is vastly different from running a corporation. However, there are a lot of management skills that still apply.” said Casella. His least favorite thing about his career change is that things take longer than he would like to get accomplished, as classes only meet for a short period of time every day. His favorite parts of becoming a teacher are getting to know the students and staff members. He also enjoys listening to the students about their interests and possible career ambitions.

Casella hopes his time here at Big Spring with teach his students some important life lessons. “I would like to teach my students not to limit themselves.There are many opportunities ahead and they can always make adjustments to their paths. It is okay to make changes to your dreams as you learn new things.” said Casella.