Thomas Taylor, a math teacher and multi-sport coach, started his teaching career at the Bentley School in California, whose head of school at the time was Lakeside’s current director of experiential education, Bryan Smith. Mr. Taylor recalled that he was looking for positions in Seattle following his partner getting a job in the city, and reached out to Mr. Smith. In 2020, Mr. Smith informed him of an open position as a math teacher. Since then, Mr. Taylor has been an integral part of the Lakeside math department, having taught algebra, precalculus, geometry, and calculus.
Besides math, Mr. Taylor has been involved with various sports teams throughout his six-year tenure. He had played baseball in college and football as a kid. In spring of 2022, he helped broadcast Lakeside baseball games online when fans were unable to attend them due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of Lakeside, Mr. Taylor has served as a baseball coach for the North Seattle Rainiers — a local youth baseball organization — and coached 100 games in the past year alone. The following fall, he helped coach the football team at the request of Football Program Head Mike Lengel when they were short on coaches. ,
Mr. Taylor said that he has really enjoyed working with both his [math] colleagues and his students, especially students who didn’t historically like math. He hopes they remember him meeting them at their individual levels and leading them to enjoy his class, even if it wasn’t their favorite subject.
One of his favorite lessons to teach was U-substitution in calculus, because you can “start to see everything tie back together” and things start to click for students, like the “connection between the derivative and anti-derivative.” He also enjoyed teaching polynomial long-division and synthetic division in Algebra 2; “What I loved about it is … it really wouldn’t feel like you were doing division at all. And all of a sudden, you’d spit out this answer, and it was just like, ‘Where did this come from?’”
One of his most memorable moments at Lakeside was a fun class he taught after cutting his finger with a butter knife while preparing breakfast. He mentioned his experience in class that day, explaining to his students that butter knives are in fact dangerous and to exercise caution while using them. “[W]e closed the class lesson, and I asked, ‘What is the single most important lesson we’re going to take away today?’ and the whole class was able to answer, ‘Butter knives are knives, too.’”
After Lakeside, Mr. Taylor will be moving on to become a full-time baseball coach and manager, serving as director of baseball operations for the North Seattle Rainiers. His role will entail overseeing 12 baseball teams and the associated coaches and support staff. He noted that the reason he currently works only part time at Lakeside is because of his commitment to coaching baseball. “When that opportunity came to do it full time, that was just something that I couldn’t pass up,” he said. Having played on his first official baseball team at the age of 3, Mr. Taylor has kept the sport in his life ever since, playing through college and for several years afterward before moving on to become a coach. “It doesn’t feel like a job … I’m excited about that for sure because it’s fun. It doesn’t feel like work,” he said. He also added that he looks forward to the increased flexibility that comes with not having to follow a rigid school schedule, which will allow him to visit his family and go on vacation more often.
“Leaving the students is really tough,” Mr. Taylor said. “I’m going to miss the student body as a whole … I’ve really enjoyed that experience [of teaching at Lakeside].”
