Kathleen Sassara, Co-Content Editor
After 21 years as a Marine Corps navigator and pilot flying cargo planes and traveling around the globe, new Learning Resource Center (LRC) teacher Trey McBride has drastically changed the course of his life.
McBride originally entered the Marine Corps intent on following in his family’s footsteps. His grandfather, father and brother had all been or were Marines at the time of his enlistment, and he soon found that the life they had led suited him, too.
He quickly realized that travel was one of the benefits that a military life could provide, and over the course of his career, he lived in many places across the U.S. and the world.
“I lived in California; … I was in New York; North Carolina; I did three tours in the Middle East, and I was in combat twice in Iraq,” McBride said. “I did a float in a navy ship for seven months, and because I was in the aviation side, I was able to travel all over the world. … We got to go into new countries, meet new cultures, and that’s always resonated with me — just the exploration aspect of it.”
McBride spent most of his 21 years as a U.S. Marine piloting and navigating KC130s, a highly versatile cargo transport aircraft. KC130s are primarily reserved for transferring troops and cargo; however, McBride also did in-air helicopter and jet refuels, as well as battlefield illumination.
While the travel and variety of military life was certainly a plus, the most valuable aspect for McBride was the sense of community.
“The military itself sometimes gets a bad rap,” he said. “We put it in this bubble of ‘Oh, it’s uber-conservative’ or ‘They don’t like to see outside of what fits inside this mold,’ but I didn’t find that at all.
“The military, for me, was about working with people that were incredibly professional. They had a great love of their country and the ideals that we have as democracy, and they enjoyed what they did.”
For McBride, the opportunity to join and be challenged by such a group of people was priceless.
Eventually, however, he wanted something new, and thanks to a social studies teacher from his youth, McBride knew exactly what he wanted to do next.
“I had a great social studies teacher when I was in 11th grade, Mark Nardo, and [he] kind of put the seed in my head at a very early age that [education] might be something that I would want to look into,” McBride said. “Later on, when my career was towards the end, I went back to that idea.”
While McBride continued to work full time as a Marine, he began attending George Mason University at night, and received his master’s degree in education. Soon thereafter, he also received his teaching certification in Virginia.
According to McBride, the energy of being in a classroom was what kept him engaged through the busy schedule of his masters program.
“It was incredible,” he said. “When I would go into the classroom, I just really enjoyed the energy of connecting with students, and there’s so much potential if you really put your heart and soul into it and you make that personal connection with someone. Not only does it benefit your own spirit, [but] it can also benefit them, and I think that’s great. I love that energy; that transfer.”
As McBride found his feet in the classroom, he also began to develop his own teaching style, and here he looked back again to his social studies teacher for inspiration.
“He would find out what people personally liked, and then he would try to tailor the curriculum to that to make school fun,” McBride said. “And that’s kind of a blueprint that I’ve carried with me; … find out what engages someone, find out what they love, see if there’s a way to put it into the content so it’s meaningful to them. [This method] requires more work for the teacher, but that’s why we’re here.”
Once he finished his master’s program, it was time to find a place to teach, and McBride knew he wanted to head to the Northwest. He decided to find somewhere near Olympia, the city where his daughter now lives, so he and his wife set off on a road trip from Washington, D.C., to Washington state.
This trip, unlike the straight shot across the country it could have been, became a three-month-long quest with an unusual goal.
“We bought a VW van and went cross country just trying to understand,” McBride said. “It’s very partisan, America, right now. … Everything that’s been happening in our country recently has shown that there are so many different opinions, and for us I think it’s so important to engage in activities where you meet people that may not necessarily have the same point of view that you do.”
So, McBride and his wife did just that — wherever they went, they tried to strike up a dialogue. According to McBride, their intention was never to debate or question people’s beliefs, simply to understand their motivations.
“It was always ‘tell me about yourself, tell me about your community,’” McBride said. “We would try to get to know people.”
McBride noted that, despite the partisan politics he observed, people could be defined more strongly by their similarities than their differences. He noted the strength of connections between families, neighbors and communities.
This desire to challenge and understand was also what brought the couple to Vashon.
“We got on Google, and we searched for progressive, liberal communities near Olympia,” McBride said. “Vashon kept popping up, so we decided to come out here, and we just loved it.”
He has since transferred his teaching certification from Virginia to Washington, and was substituting and para-educating at all three Vashon schools until his current position opened up and he was asked to fill the role. According to McBride, his vision for his class has three pillars.
“[I’m trying] to create an environment where students feel like their personal interests are taken to heart, that they are provided curriculum and content that is aligned with their goals, and that is fun,” McBride said. “It’s a balancing act … and it’s really important to create a relationship where, not only do they feel like you care — because we do, as teachers — but that their vision is important.”
The most obvious manifestation of these goals are the posters on his walls — testaments, McBride said, to the varied interests of his students.
On the first day, he asked students to bring in posters that reflect what is important to them. While few have so far, he hopes that this feature of his classroom will continue to build.
“The whole thing is trying to build an environment where people feel welcomed and where people can look around and say ‘Hey, this is ours,’” McBride said.