Matt Thornton - 3rd Grade Lead Teacher
lower school
Matt (he/him) joined the GSFS community in 2023. A North Jersey native, Matt was a 2008 Teach for America-Baltimore corps member, and worked with pre-service corps members as an instructor and coach at the Teach for America Philadelphia Institute for many summers.
Matt spent time teaching 5th grade English Language Arts at Excel Academy Charter School-East Boston. There he developed a passion for cooperative learning, culturally responsive teaching, and vision-driven classroom culture. He was also proud to develop a theater arts program centered on productions of student-written plays based on comedies by William Shakespeare. Since leaving Boston, he has taught upper elementary students at schools in Philadelphia and Camden, NJ.
Matt was an Acting Scholar at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he earned his B.A. in History and Theatre. He later continued his studies at Rutgers University and Johns Hopkins University. He cooks, hikes, reads, and visits minor league baseball parks whenever possible.
