Lawrence Woodmere Academy's Samuel Schwartz is multi-talented teen

A savant in multiple disciplines, from computers to theater, 16-year-old Lawrence Woodmere Academy junior Samuel Schwartz has more hobbies and talents than the average teenager.

He plays seven instruments, having taught himself most of them. He performs in musical theater, and is the lead in the school’s production of “Footloose.” He is working on a pilot’s license. He has earned 15 college credits, programs and builds computers, has developed a dozen apps, and is a software consultant with his own company. And he plays soccer.

“Ever since I was little, my parents have always encouraged me,” Schwartz said. “I’ve always been big into school. I’ve been doing a lot for a long time.”

Now he is to teaching a computer class as a volunteer, to give back to the school community he has been part of since he was in pre-kindergarten.

“He’s sort of an out-of-the-box thinker — always has been,” Samuel’s mother, Ella Schwartz, said. “He never really conformed to what somebody told him was supposed to be done at his age.”

Samuel remembers using a computer when he was a child, and loving it. “When I got older, I just wanted to find out how it worked,” he said, “so I started learning how to program, started building them and from there it just kind of skyrocketed, and my life became everything computer-related.” He remembers building and programming his first computer when he was 9 or 10.

As an eighth-grader, Schwartz enrolled in Advanced Placement computer science. He quickly exhausted all the computer science classes he could take at LWA, so in his freshman year of high school, he decided to take classes at SUNY Farmingdale.

“It just really challenged me, and helped me grow as a programmer and as a person,” he said, “and kind of let me tiptoe into what the college computer science life is like.”

At Farmingdale, he took as many computer classes as a college sophomore. “We kind of said, all right maybe we’ll slow it down a little bit and you’ll find something else to do,” his mother said, “and then that’s when he had this idea: Well, why don’t I teach?”

Because Samuel had attended LWA his entire life, he said, “I kind of wanted to give back to my community. I knew that I could teach it, and I knew that it would be fun for [students].”

Last year he pitched his idea of teaching a middle school class to Headmaster Brian O’Connell, who liked the idea, but suggested that Schwartz teach ninth-graders instead. “He’s more advanced than the teacher in some cases …,” O’Connell said.
After creating a curriculum and a syllabus,

Schwartz started teaching an elective class, 3D Modeling and Printing, for LWA freshmen last month. He quickly warmed to teaching, although he said, “I remember the night before the first time I taught I couldn’t sleep. I was so scared.”

Teaching is a way to bolster his skills, his mother said. “I think that he found out pretty quickly that it required him to understand technology on a deeper, more intimate level than just consuming it in a classroom and taking tests,” she said. “Now he had to own it and deliver it to someone.”

“I have a newfound respect for the teachers,” Schwartz said. “You can tell the teachers who put in the time and work, and I really appreciate all those teachers, because creating a syllabus and creating the class, just making it interesting — it’s hard.”

In the class, students use design software to create their own models to print in three dimensions. “I think they really like it, because students actually relate best to students,” O’Connell said, adding that Schwartz is able to break the curriculum down in a way his peers can understand easily.

Ella and husband, Jeffrey, are both engineers who are supportive of Samuel’s thirst for knowledge. “Education is super important to us in our family, and always has been,” Ella said. “He’s pretty motivated on his own — I guess we consider ourselves very fortunate that he’s kind of paved this path on his own. I feel very fortunate that he’s in an environment that allows him to explore his interests,” she added of LWA.

Samuel appreciates the school’s growing science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, program, and has begun to consider colleges he might attend.

His dream university is Cornell, where he would major in either computer or mechanical engineering. He hopes to develop more apps, and expand his small software company.