Math teacher Brandy Thomas comes to Beachwood with 17 years of teaching experience. 

Her journey into education began in high school.

“I was always good at math, and I used to tutor my friends who were older than me,” she said.

Originally aspiring to teach elementary school students, Thomas’s focus shifted to high school after discovering that she enjoyed working with older students during her college fieldwork.

She is a firm believer in the power of practice and perseverance, and her approach to teaching reflects that.  She assigns homework every night so that students have ample opportunity to practice the material. 

“You have to learn from your mistakes,” she said.

Thomas encourages students to persevere through challenging math concepts. She guides them through the thought process of the problems so they can learn to answer independently. 

“I try to break things down for my students,” she said.  “I’ll say, okay. Like, what do we know? And they’ll list it out and then I’ll say, okay. What do we need to know? What are they asking us to find out? And then I’ll say, what other information do we need to answer this question? So I kind of just I try to guide them, like, a thought process.”

For students unsure of their math abilities Thomas offers simple yet powerful advice quoting Vince Lombardi: 

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”