Welcome Mr. Gaines

Mr. Gaines grew up in the hills and forests just north of Bloomington, Indiana. He graduated from Grove City College in north-western Pennsylvania where he majored in History with minors in Economics and Medieval Studies. Afterward he pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago, earning his Master’s of Arts in the Social Sciences concentrating in History. His academic interests include the social and economic history of medieval Europe. Coming to Seven Oaks has meant coming home to southern Indiana, where Mr. Gaines is excited to serve his community. He enjoys reading, writing, hiking, and table-top games.

I teach primarily because I love my subject, and I am ecstatic about the opportunity to show young scholars why it is worth loving. I see history as the most profoundly human story: a story endlessly fascinating for the hearer as well as the storyteller. I also have had excellent teachers form me into the person and scholar that I am, and I hope to do the same for others one day.

“Far more often [than asking the question ‘Is it true?’] they [children] have asked me: ‘Was he good? Was he wicked?’ That is, they were far more concerned to get the Right side and the Wrong side clear. For that is a question equally important in History and in Faerie.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”