"I want to teach. I need to teach. I’m going to teach,” recalls David Schein II telling a friend over dinner during his senior year in high school.
    “When I was very young, I wanted to be a fire pilot,” says Schein. “I was seduced by the United States Armed Forces Recruiting Station, Navy Division.”
    After enlisting in the Delayed Entry Program, signing the contract, and swearing his oath of service to the United States Navy, Schein recollects being “so proud.” However, one evening at dinner Schein felt as if “someone smacked [him] on the back of the head,” stimulating his desire to be a teacher.
    Schein’s “narcissistic belief that [he] has something worthwhile to share” brought him to transcend his confused and frightened feelings when threatened to be “arrested as Away without Leave” for breaking his oath of service with the United States Navy. After a period of back-and-forth battling, Schein was able to “secure an unspecified discharge instead of a jail cell.”
    Although Schein jokes, “It was fun being a fugitive,” he admits, “I needed to stay a civilian and I needed to be a teacher.”
    Today, Schein is an Engineering and Technical Education teacher at Dulaney, mastering three sections of Introduction to Engineering and Technical Concepts and three sections of Engineering Principles and Applications.
    On the first day of school, junior Carly Blatt noticed what many students would agree to be Schein’s trademark: his extremely long, wavy hair. Blatt remembers thinking, “He has cool hair… this class will probably be really fun.”
    Schein explains that his “last haircut was in November of 1998.” He went in for a trim and came out with about a half-inch of hair. “Not so much as a trim since,” says the teacher, who will be donating a foot of his hair to Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program, an organization created to support women with cancer.
    Schein describes himself as “gregarious,” and this title holds true. Among the many outgoing and spontaneous things he has accomplished, he lists a few: driving to New York solely for a cup of coffee, proposing on stage after co-starring in a production of David Auburn’s “Proof,” and frequently dumpster-diving.

    Four months into school and Schein has his routine established. During the periods he doesn’t teach, he normally runs down to Marty Stranathan’s room. On the way, Schein has noticed what students refer to as the “smoker’s corner.” Schein chuckles as he gives details of the day he sat with his stool, clipboard and coffee next to the corner.
    “Kids [smoking] came booking around the corner,” and tried to nonchalantly put the cigarettes out. Schein refrains from reporting the students, because he says, “I know for a fact that [kids] aren’t going to benefit from getting [suspended]. I know from getting countless detentions [when I was a student].”
    Once a six-year smoker, Schein rejoices in the fact that to this day, he has not had a cigarette in 11.5 years.
    In his spare time, Schein has a habit of saving animals, so far several cats and a dog. He also likes “fixing stuff,” including his 1975 Kawasaki KZ400 motorcycle, his 1998 Volvo V70, and an HDTV that he found during one of his dumpster-diving excursions.
    Even with his rambunctious lifestyle, Schein’s ultimate goal is to someday “be a daddy,” while his goal this year is “to not get fired.”