English

Words and language fascinate me. I love to read fictional novels and I believe I am a fairly confident and creative writer. I love to talk to people, articulating whatever happens to be on my mind at the time and listening to what they have to say. Hopefully there’s usually a balance between the two! I also enjoy television and movies, particularly if I can get lost in someone else’s drama for a little while. During the summers I teach English as a Second Language to international teenagers. Learning about other cultures and languages is exciting and enlightening for me. I also love to run. I have coached cross country and track and field over the years, and I often participate in local road races and have completed three marathons. The past few years have been busy and momentous for me. I got married, purchased a home and started a family. I now have two wonderful little boys who keep me active, supply me with constant entertainment and wonder, and fill me with more pride and happiness than I ever thought possible. If you stop by my classroom or catch me in the hallways, I’m sure you’ll wind up hearing about them! Three words that describe me well are sensitive, proud and frenetic. Bringing these traits into the classroom, I believe, has made me a strong and happy teacher.

Thomas grew up in Jamaica Plain and went to high school at Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury. After graduating from Tufts with a major in English, he stayed at Tufts to coach in the men’s basketball program. Thomas also enrolled in the Education Department and started working toward a master’s degree. A year of coaching, graduate school work, and student teaching in the Medford and Somerville schools convinced him that he wanted to teach and coach at the high school level. The following fall he started teaching, coaching, and running a dormitory at an independent boarding school in southeastern Massachusetts. After nine years, the Mannings decided to move back to the Boston area to try day-school life, and he happily landed at Beaver in the fall of 1990 as an English teacher and basketball coach. It has been exciting to be part of Beaver’s growth and development over the years, and he continues to enjoy his work with Beaver students and their families.

Since 1985 I have been part of the Beaver community, working in a variety of administrative capacities as well as teaching English and co-curricular courses. My calling as a teacher comes from my interest in kids, in helping them develop their critical minds and creative spirits. I’ve always been drawn to the arts. I spent a sabbatical studying poetry and portrait drawing and have recently developed an interest in rug-hooking, an old folk art tradition. Although my primary focus at Beaver is college counseling, I have valued the opportunity to teach fiction writing, a senior English elective that focuses on developing students’ artistic sensibilities and technical skills. In both my role as counselor and teacher, my work has been about helping students discover their stories and the power of their imaginations. Maybe it is my California roots that push me to dream.

For almost twenty years I was an antique dealer. Before that I was a bank teller, a waiter, a restaurant manager, and a soda jerk. When my antique store burned down in 1993, I used the teaching certificate I had earned in college to get a job in the Charlestown projects, teaching middle school kids who had been asked to leave the Boston Public Schools. When my first child, Jake, was born in 1995, I opened another antique store on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge. Now antique dealing might sound like an interesting pursuit, but really one spends a lot of time schlepping large armoires to the fourth floor of walk-up apartments. By the year 2000, after the birth of my daughter Isabel, I looked in the mirror and realized I wasn’t a mover and a shaker, I just moved shaky furniture. I decided I wanted to do something that mattered and teaching fit that bill perfectly. For some reason, Beaver took a chance on me and for that I am eternally grateful. Because I spent so long away from academia, my classroom approach can be seen as unconventional. I think true learning is a messy process. One learns more from mistakes than from successes. I know I have.