Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Page.
Hi Matthew, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in Dade City, Florida, just north of Tampa, and I moved to Tallahassee for 8 years to attend Florida State University for a Bachelors of Arts Double Major in Political Science and Spanish and Graduated in 2017, and I participated in Dance Marathon at Florida State University where we raised funds for children at Shands Children’s Miracle Hospital and pediatric programs at Florida State Universities College of Medicine. I then started working for Florida Department of Corrections in Human Resources for 6 months and then to Florida Commission on Offender Review as a Commission Investigator for 4 years in Tallahassee and half a year in downtown Tampa and continued to do the alumni program for Dance Marathon at FSU. While at Florida State University, I ran the Tallahassee Marathon twice.
I then was hired at Raymond B. Stewart Middle School as a World History teacher and at Zephyrhills High School as the Boys Cross Country. I started an Instagram account to share knowledge about what’s going on in the world, content about what we’re learning, sporting events on campus, and if the students have questions about the lessons and need help they reach out with parents’ permission. I then moved to Zephyrhills High School as a Modern World History and AP Human Geography teacher, Cross Country Coach, Long Distance Track Coach, and including being a member of Equal Opportunity Survey committee. I have now ran 3 half marathons and 5 full marathons. My goal for my students and runners is to explore, learn and reach their best potential. My goals for myself are to break 3 hours in the marathon, hit 1hour 8 minutes in the half marathon, and then learn along with the students because I never want to stop growing and reaching my best potential. On my classroom Instagram account, I post my travels, my students and runners’ success on top of what I already do! I’m so excited for my Cross-Country team because they have tremendous amount of talent, and we have so many opportunities that we are finally capable to do, as Title 1 schools rarely receive as much recognition. My PLC, Admin, fellow coaches, and parents are incredibly supportive of me as a person and my identity, but also as scholar and coach.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As a gay person who is sometimes Femme presenting, I have been called the f slur, other profanities my entire life, and stereotypes by fellow students when I was a kid. This has persisted throughout my entire life, and unfortunately, I have had students, parents, and strangers use these slurs and connotations on me. To the extent that at a summer practice, I had a parents call police on a belligerent stranger who was being beyond aggressive towards a student, and as coach I had to remove the student from the situation, which resulted in my personhood being attacked in an exponentially dangerous manner by the belligerent stranger.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
For my World History and AP Human Geography courses, I love to make the courses applicable to the real world. So they can learn skills that the students then take into the real world once they graduate. As Cross-Country coach, I am incredibly proud of my runners. They have created a culture of including everyone, which has made the team really flourish, and they push each other on top of me pushing them and running with them. What sets me apart from the others is that I have meetings with my Cross Country parents and I am completely transparent with them; with my courses, I am blunt and real with my students, I don’t hold anything back; but with everything I do, I do with compassion, empathy, and collaboration (Because I am not perfect and other people have better ideas than I do).
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am working on bringing my Half Marathon and Marathon times down, so I can qualify for the Six Star Majors Marathons (Boston, Chicago, New York City, Berlin, London, and Tokyo). I have already run the Chicago Marathon, but I want to finish all of them. I am working on getting my time down, a couple coworkers believe that I could qualify for the Olympic Trials, so I am going to do my best to do so. Since I already run and workout every day, I’m just increasing my workouts. I don’t know if I will make it, but why not try so I don’t have any regrets. I also include the Olympics into my courses, as they are important cultural-political events that demonstrates every nation’s top athletes.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/pagenhistory
