Rockmore's positive influence

By Jonathan O'Neill

March 31, 2021

Todd Rockmore is a teacher and soccer coach at Colonie Central High School. He teaches Global History and Criminal Justice. Rockmore prides himself on giving the best experience possible to his students and providing a positive environment for students to work and have fun.

Rockmore grew up in Voorheesville and described his childhood as "wonderful". He spent his time going to school, playing sports and hanging out with his friends. Rockmore said his parents were a big part of how he treats others. They were very caring but made sure he understood how to be accountable.

Rockmore was originally going to be an engineer but he didn’t enjoy the classes in college. He took an education class and loved it. He then switched his major and ran with teaching.

Mr. Rockmore is always looking to adapt to the new educational methods that are constantly updating. One of his biggest challenges as a teacher is to deal with the same situations over and over.

“ I always try to be more understanding, sometimes it can be difficult when dealing with the same situations”, he said.

The goal of teaching is making sure your students can learn and try to put the knowledge they’ve gained to use out in the real world. Mr. Rockmore said he is most proud of his work when he’s contacted by former students and finding out that they have become successful and have put some of what they learned from him to use.

It is very important to have goals to keep you focused and to help you work harder to achieve them. Mr. Rockmore has one big goal he hopes to achieve in the next five years.

He said “ I want to get the Criminal Justice program to the college level classes at Colonie”.

This would certainly improve the program because there is so much to learn in a criminal justice class.

One of Mr. Rockmore’s favorite hobbies is to travel to other countries and to see other cultures.

Mr. Rockmore said “ My favorite place I traveled to was Thailand. I loved the culture and was able to get away from cell phones and my regular life and learn about other cultures.”

Mr. Rockmore has many places he would still like to travel to. “ I want to go on a Safari in Central Africa” he said.

It’s great to see someone being able to travel as much as he does while having a full time job and being a coach.

Mr. Rockmore has many different hobbies outside of work, but his passion is still teaching. Mr. Rockmore loves to interact with his students. Whether it’s one on one, in small groups, or big groups, Rockmore is always happy to get involved when his students need it.

The most important thing to Mr. Rockmore is to be positive and happy and make other people smile. Mr. Rockmore has done a great job at being a positive influence towards his students and the people around him.