This year, Greeley welcomed Mr. John McManus as a new physics teacher. We interviewed him to hear his thoughts about Greeley, who is he both inside and outside the classroom, and what he hopes to see in Greeley’s STEM program this year!

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself—where you went to college, where you worked before coming to Chappaqua, etc.
I grew up in Pearl River, New York and went to Northeastern University after high school. I studied mechanical engineering and worked as an engineer for a few years after college. I went back to school at night and became a teacher at Putnam Valley for four years. This is my first year at Greeley and I teach physics.

Q: What are some of your interests outside of the classroom?
I love sports and I still play as often as I can. I play pickup basketball, softball, and I love to be outside. I love fishing, working on my house…anything techy or mechanical or anything I can get my hands on.

Q: What has been your favorite thing about Greeley so far?
It has been a really welcoming community from students all the way to my colleagues and my fellow staff members. Everyone has taken the time to welcome me and have made me feel at home from day one.

Q: How are you maintaining Greeley values of integrity, inclusion and sustainability in your classroom?
My students always have the opportunity to share what is going on in their heads, which turns into a discussion. Just today in class we were speaking about whether [or not] scientists should be held responsible for their discoveries and it was really cool to hear my students’ opinions about where they see the world going and how they can influence the world themselves and how technology can make an impact. Students have begun to open up to the rest of the class and have become more comfortable sharing.

Q: Have you participated or taught in a STEM program in the past? If so, tell us more about that and what you accomplished there.
Yes, I was able to teach an innovation and design course. The idea behind creating that class was not to say “let’s build x, y, and z.” It was formatted more as: “here is an issue, and let’s try and solve it.” One project that sticks out to me is a windmill challenge, where students were challenged to transfer energy. It was really cool to see how their designs were born from a problem and how they were able to use that design to solve that problem. We put a purpose behind it.

Q: What are you excited about, regarding Greeley’s STEM program this year?
I think what’s really cool for me is the physics classes are really well aligned with the resources we have in our STEAM center. I’m excited to bridge the classroom with the STEAM center and use that room and the materials in it to supplement physics education.

Q: What are your goals for Greeley’s STEM program this year?
I like the idea of implementing a STEM challenge in my physics classes and have students compete against each other using the STEM resources we have. We are at a stalemate in the world with renewable energy sources and it would be really cool to take a physics approach to that and use our STEAM center to help guide that work.