Marie, Science Teacher, Wilson High School

           I was interviewing three Wilson freshmen when their teacher, Ms. Gibson, walked by. "Interveiw our teacher!" one of them urged me. "She's actually good! She doesn't suck!" Ms. Gibson was happy to talk, and the freshman skated away.

Ms. Gibson was adamant that her picture be "a side shot."

         
        “I’m Marie Gibson and I’m a teacher at Wilson. I teach science- biology, earth science, environmental science, a bunch of things. I’ve been teaching quite a while, I’ll just say that. I like my job. I always wanted to be a teacher.

            When I was a teenager, I kind of saw myself as a teacher, and it actually did happen. As a student in high school I was more along the lines of… a nerd. As opposed to being one that was in with everybody as far as a crowd and doing what everybody wanted to do. I was kind of a study person. And I’m still about the same today. I’m pretty happy with that.

            My advice to kids in high school is to be true to yourself. Listen to those who are your parents, adults and so forth. They’re going to give you advice, and see where it fits in your life. You’re going to use something, but definitely know that your strongest background is probably going to come from those who have been closest to you and have really had an impression on you. Your teachers from elementary school, kindergarten, your parents, your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents and all. That’s that backing that’s going to follow you and steady you and add a level of sturdiness.

             You’re gonna go though things- I usually tell students, “trust me, you’re going to go off to college, and you’re going to do some crazy things. Just make sure you do something you can bounce back from.”

            I ask her if she’s had the chance to be one of those stable forces in her students’ lives.

            “Ohh yeah. Oh yeah. And they tend to call back. A lot. And I give ‘em advice and help ‘em as best I can.

            I really like what I do as a teacher. Teaching is fun. It’s almost like… a lot of times you have to put yourself in children’s places and figure out ‘well, why did this happen?’ or ‘why would they respond like this? How would I have responded?’ And that keeps you focused on what’s really important and what you need to do.

            Children today are very different than ones I’ve taught earlier, and definitely from me. But children are children, they’re gonna be kids. They’re gonna make mistakes, and they’re gonna learn. It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. You gotta sulk for a little bit. Sulk for a little bit, but don’t stay there. You gotta get up and get going.

        I’m really, this year, pushing my kids to not wimp out before the end. The end is the day I give you the final exam. You’ve got all the projects you need to do. Do ‘em. Get started! And they’re living up to it, I must admit. I gave a project to ecology where they had to go and research information on a plant and an animal in a certain biome or acquatic environment. And out of 120 projects, all on powerpoints- I got 106 back. And this is towards the end of the year! 106 back! I’m joyful. That’s really good. If only machines worked that good!" She laughs.

Ralph and Billy, Pepco, Wisconsin and Upton

        I poked my head into the open sides of a Pepco truck parked near 7-11. When I asked if either of the men inside wanted to be interviewed, one of them, seated on the floor, immediately said “Yeah! Billy loves to talk!” Sitting shotgun in the Pepco truck while Billy and Ralph ate Z Burger, I chatted with them amid loud drilling and sawing. Billy obliged for a picture, but Ralph didn't want to be photographed.

“Alright, um, I’m William Mitchell, I work for Pepco. I’m from Calvert County.”

Billy

I ask him what brought him to work at Pepco

“Um. Money. Honestly, when I was like five- don’t laugh- I wanted to be a professional soccer player.”

Ralph laughs. I ask him what job he wanted when he was younger. “I had a passion for cars so it had something to do with cars. An auto mechanic or a car salesman, something along those lines. I never got into the auto mechanic, but I was a car salesman. But you can’t make a living off that.

 I ask them what they were like when they were eighteen.

Billy: “I dunno, I guess I just played video games.”

Ralph: “I was a knucklehead. Somebody who’s always getting into trouble. Who don’t listen to nobody. You know, people try to give you good advice and it goes in one ear and right out the other. I think having kids changed me. You know, once I had a kid I had to be responsible for my son. I think that’s what changed me. The oldest one is six and the youngest one is two.

I ask him to introduce himself

"I’m Ralph, I’ve been working here, what, six months?”

“Three months” Billy corrects him.

“Four months”

“Four months and five days.”

“But who’s counting, right?” They laugh.

Ralph continues what he was saying. "Having kids made me calm down, take responsibility. Cause I was just whatever, doing whatever I wanted to do. Wasn’t taking it down a path I needed to go. I guess I was just living every day like it was my last, wasn’t really thinking about it. And having kids was kind of like a wakeup call. My first son was my wakeup call. Cause, you know, I went to work but I just blew my money because, you know, if I couldn’t pay rent and I got kicked out I could just go live at my mom’s house. But you can’t go live there with your baby moms and your kids, you can’t do stuff like that.”

I ask Billy if he wants to have kids.

“Eventually. Someday. Honestly, I’da though I’d have had kids by now. I just haven’t found the right person.”

I ask them if they have any advice for kids about to graduate high school.

“Fail, stay in.” Billy laughs at his own joke.

 Ralph laughs, then says “My advice would be to make sure you’re doing something that you wanna do and not just doing it because it makes money or you’ve got things to take care of. It makes it easier when you’re doing something you like doing.”

Billy adds “I guess one thing I see a lot of is people going to college and they just pick a major or whatever and they end up changing it because they’re not sure what they want. I would say make sure you know what you want so you’re not wasting time.”

Ralph nods. “Right, that’s what I’m saying. Make sure you know what you want to do. I went to school, college for automotive. I’ve been working on cars, doing things with my hands since I was five years old. And I think I’d still be doing but there’s not a lot of money in it.”

Billy says “For me it was sort of like from experience, cause I’ve been working since I was like fifteen. When I started high school I started working. And for me it took all that experience to figure out I wanted to do something where I wasn’t behind a desk all day long. I needed to be out on the street. To figure it out, maybe just sit down and try to figure out what a passion of yours is. And then do it. But I guess that could come back and backfire because you like it and you end up doing it as a profession and hating it.”

I ask them if they mind all the bad press Pepco has gotten recently.

Ralph laughs. “I don’t take it personally, because we work really, really hard.”

Billy adds soberly “One thing I see about Pepco is that we gotta work safe. It doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as it’s safe, cause we don’t want anybody to die."