TCNJ

21 WINTER 2026 JAVIER NICASIO '16 Passaic County Technical Institute, Passaic "Smiley Boy." That's what the principal at Paterson's P.S. 29 once dubbed Javier Nicasio, the kid forever beaming in the hallways. Here was a kid who absolutely loved school. The read-alongs and math challenges. The field trips and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new library. The history lessons about Ireland that came with a crash course in Irish step dance. Though the nickname didn't stick past elementary school, the joy sparked by the setting certainly did. Nicasio always dreamed of a classroom of his own, but when his eighth-grade English teacher organized a cleanup of the creek that ran behind the school, a sense of greater purpose emerged; pulling rusted bikes from the murky water alongside friends and neighbors, he realized a teacher's impact extends far beyond the classroom. "She made me want to teach in my own community, as a way of giving back," he says. Now an education and training instructor at his high school alma mater, Nicasio is on a mission to shape the next generation of teachers and inspire them to bring their talents back to the Passaic schools. His teaching style — spiked with TikTok quotes and plenty of jokes — is as exuberant as you might expect of a past member of TCNJ's Homecoming Court. But he wants his enthusiasm to be infectious, whether cheering on seniors planning preschool lessons or coaching his budding educators to a second-place finish at the SkillsUSA Championship, a hands-on workforce development competition. And it just might be working. Recently, a student printed up a nameplate of his own and placed it on Nicasio's desk. "He wants my job," Nicasio says. "That makes me very happy." Javier Nicasio '16 stands atop his beloved hometown of Paterson, New Jersey. A TEACHER'S IMPACT extends far beyond the classroom.

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