About Me

Welcome to AP World History and AP Human Geography with Mr. Manning! I'm from Fort Worth and I graduated from Crowley High School in 2002. I studied at Texas Tech University where I received my Bachelor's in History. I've been a teacher since 2007, teaching 9th, 10th, and 11th grade social studies. I am very passionate about education and teaching. I come from a long line of educators in my family and remember wanting to be a teacher since the 2nd grade. This will be my 13th year teaching (4th year at Grapevine) and I am extremely happy to be at Grapevine High School. I am a big believer in owning your own learning and creating a learning community between students and teachers. Below you can explore and learn more about who I am as a person and an educator. I am very happy now to be a Mustang and very excited about learning more about you, developing new skills and exploring the history of the world and our United States.

What I love to do!

I love reading and theatre! My main hobby outside of teaching and education is acting! I am usually through out the school year either going to see my fellow thespians in shows or myself on stage performing. I have appeared in more than a dozen shows around DFW and a couple of independent films. Next to teaching, acting and performing are my favorite things to do. I try to use my experience and skills as an actor in the classroom.

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre." ~ Gail Godwin

All the plays I performed in during 2016

My Favorite Books and Authors

I love reading and there are too many books or authors fro me to list. This Summer I read "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari. This book was amazing! Its a look at the history of Homo Sapiens and wants to answer the question, why are we the ones who ended up mastering the planet? What sets us apart from species of animals that live on this planet as well as ones that are no longer with us? Do we have a direction as a species that human history is pointing and driving us to? If so, where are we headed?

My Philosophy in Education

I'm starting my 11th year teaching and in those years as an educator I truly believe that there is no one magic formula or system to teach students. I think learning happens when a student desires to learn and when shared within a learning community. The last 2 years I have been studying and practicing a form of blended learning which has many different looks and definitions to what it is. For me, blended learning is blending traditional teaching with the new digital/online form of learning to cater to the needs and talents of each individual student to foster the best learning environment for them. I am also a big believer in cooperative learning and that students more often than not learn more from each other than learning solely from a teacher lecturing in front of the room. I also firmly believe that teachers should evolve and adapt constantly to meet the needs of their students especially of the 21st century. This past year and this summer I have been moving towards a Growth Mindset style of classroom and teaching instead of the Fixed Mindset. To elaborate, I want to start emphasizing with students the learning process over the product. I hope at GHS I can foster a desire not just to learn history but to develop new study, social, and academic skills that really help a student grow into their own free thinking, intelligent citizen of our great American democracy.

My Family

My family are all a bunch of teachers and educators and I cant think of better mentors in my development as a teacher than my parents, my brother, sister in law, aunts, grandparents, and yes even great-great grandparents.

My Family

podcasts!

I love listening to podcasts. Here are some of my favorites!

And Other Things....(I'll keep adding)

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