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Family receives another teaching honor
By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE © St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 2001 INVERNESS -- When Jim Manos was chosen Teacher of the Year at Lecanto Middle School last year, his wife, Laura, was delighted for her husband. Now, one year later, the focus has shifted to Laura Manos, who was recently selected Teacher of the Year at Pleasant Grove Elementary School. Jim Manos went on to be the district and Crown Region Teacher of the Year, which put him in the running for the Florida Teacher of the Year. (A teacher from another district won the statewide honor). Laura Manos said he was selected for those honors because of his overall standing as a person in the community, as an instructor and as a colleague. Now, a year later, it is Jim Manos' turn to suggest the reasons for his wife's selection at her school. "I've never been in her classroom to see her teach, but I've seen her at home and how she prepares and, I assure you, for every hour she teaches, she matches it with an hour spent in preparation at home," Jim Manos said. If she should go further and become the district's selection, he said, "I will really enjoy it. If she was selected, it would be great, obviously. It would be a credit to her professionally." Laura Manos, 49, is a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. Jim Manos teaches technology at Lecanto Middle. Although both are recognized teachers, they teach in very different situations. "I'm laid back and easy going," said Laura Manos. And to keep her students in line she says, "with the little guys, you have to repeat, repeat, repeat." She says she teaches her students to care about one another, asks them whether they would want what they are doing to be done to them and, if not, suggests they apologize. Jim Manos said that while his wife has the same students for two years, his come in cycles. When he has new students, he said, "I like to come in kind of as a tyrant first, and then loosen up." Although Jim Manos is in his 28th year of teaching, Laura is in her ninth. Jim Manos went to college right out of high school and right to work out of college. They have four children. Jim Manos has his master's degree and Laura Manos is working on hers. She also is working toward national certification. But with the little ones, the job seems to come naturally to her. "I was home with my children for a lot of years nurturing at home," she said, "and went into the classroom nurturing in school." Teaching kindergarten was, to her, a continuation of what she had been doing.
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