David Farkas Interview

Flynn Kuchell
I interviewed Dave Farkas, a teacher here at Animas who I have also had as a teacher
when I was in middle school. He is 50 years old and was raised in British Columbia, Canada; his
parents emigrated from Hungary in the 1960s. This lead to his parents having high expectations
for him and his identity being partially developed by his parent’s expectations of him.
He tells a story about how his parents wanted him to go into a medical career. He
followed this path for much of his life, even going towards the path of a medical career.
Eventually, he started to develop his identity and moved away from the path he was pushed
towards his family. As your adolescence progresses identity, values, and morals are slowly
formed by the people around you and the events you experience.
As life progresses their outlook of life evolves and changes. This outlook is molded by
everything that happens, from the greatest happy memories to the worst of the worst. One of the
ways this happened was learning to appreciate and use one’s freedom to its fullest potential.
Dave told the story of his first road trip with friends and how that taught him to appreciate life to
the fullest, alongside losing a very close personal friend. He learned that he needed to travel the
world and see as much as possible after these events. When asked about witnessing these events
himself, he responded saying, “The road trip? I’m still living the eternal road trip” (Farkas). This
story shows how in many ways he is still the same person as he was in adolescence, while at the
same time learning so much about himself and the world.
As one travels through their adolescence their dreams and aspirations will be molded by
the world around them. There’s pretty much no chance that what one wants to do in their early
adolescence. Dave started his first job as doing yard work around his neighborhood growing up.
“I had a lawnmower and a weedwacker that my dad bought, and I went around my neighborhood
because everybody had lawns where I grew up.” (Farkas). He said that enjoyed nothing about
that job or as he put it “It was slave labor”. After that when he was in high school he worked
with his dad. At this job, he had something after school and on the weekends to do. He claims
that he hated the work itself but the money was worth it. Having access to this money granted the
freedom and power he needed to develop a sense of adventure.
After high school, he ended up in Durango, where he was working long hours but he was
ready to settle down and start a family. After this, he ended up studying teaching at Fort Lewis,
or as he put it, “My parents are teachers it must be inside of me. I’m going to give this a shot”
(Farkas). This shows that even later in life identity is not fully formed by itself but continues to
be molded and inspired by the figures in one’s life.
I believe it is incredibly important for adolescents to know that they shouldn’t know who
they are. Their identities have not fully formed yet because they don’t have the life experiences
to be entirely developed yet. “In adolescence I didn’t have a perspective of time. To me time is
endless, let’s live for today“ (Farkas). He stopped living for today because of how his impact on
those around him became more obvious.
Farkas, Dave. Personal Interview. 26 September 2019.