Humans of Liberty North: Greg Wickham

Humans+of+Liberty+North%3A+Greg+Wickham

Greg Wickam is a teacher at Liberty North, working in the English wing. He originally didn’t know that he was going to go into teaching, and it took him five years of college to settle on it.

 “I floated around college trying out about five different majors before settling on teaching. But I’ve always been kinda a father figure to others growing up, and I had a lot of really rude and disrespectful male teachers, and I wanted to change that,” Wickam said. 

Wickham has been into English for a really long time, starting in college when he had a professor teach about Mark Twain, and after that, he knew he wanted to go into teaching, no matter what.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I tried a lot of things out. I went into broadcasting and journalism at first but it didn’t seem right. I mean, what else are you going to do with an English degree? But then one of my professors taught a class on Mark Twain, and after that I knew that’s what I wanted to do. ” Wickam said.

Wickham has been teaching for 25 years, and each year has been different.

 “I have been teaching for 25 looooongs years, and each year has been different for different reasons. My first year teaching was incredibly difficult. Mainly because we didn’t get any textbooks or resources whatsoever. They basically gave me a class full of seniors that weren’t sure if they were going to graduate or not and said `let loose’ ”. Wickam said.

 He talked about his all time absolute  favorite books to teach.

“Fahrenheit 451 and To Kill a Mockingbird. I just love the story they both tell and the different ways they tell them.,” Wickam said. 

According to Wickham, the easiest part of his teaching experience so far has been coming into work every day. He loves his students and enjoys seeing their faces every day, but that has been hard this year due to the masks.

“The easiest part has been coming in everyday. I always enjoy coming in and working with young people and seeing their faces everyday. Yes there’s some people who are challenges occasionally but that doesn’t change anything.” Wickam said.

Wickham explains that his hardest part of his student teaching has been all the paperwork.

“For me, the hardest has definitely been doing all the paperwork. I estimated a few years ago that over my time in teaching, I’ve graded about 75,000 essays. When I retire, there are 2 things that I’m not going to miss; those are grading papers and going to meetings.” Wickham said.

Wickham said this year of teaching has gone pretty well, all things considered. 

 “This year has gone pretty well, even with Covid. There have been many ups and downs obviously. However, the smaller class sizes and break in the middle has definitely been nice.” Wickham said.