Her Story
About Maria
Maria Wilde has spent 24 years in the education field, with 12 years as a teacher followed by 12 years as an elementary school counselor serving third through fifth grade. After nine years of teaching, she returned to school at night to earn her master's degree in counseling over three years, inspired by a mentor counselor. In her current role, she manages car duty, 504 paperwork, classroom guidance lessons, student counseling, parent engagement, and support during behavior incidents or assessments. She was nominated for Teacher of the Year by her campus during her teaching years. Maria attributes her success to her upbringing in poverty, which taught her a strong work ethic from a young age, and she values moral principles such as responsibility, respect, trustworthiness, and fairness, along with family care and community involvement through church. She is currently studying to become a CPN certified personal trainer and maintains an Instagram account called Life HappensAt50 focused on health and exercise.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Maria
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to the way I was raised. We were poor, my father was an alcoholic, and I had to learn how to work from a very young age. Helping paint houses, help paint cars. Being raised by poverty made me who I am.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The advice from a counselor mentor was that counseling is very rewarding, a job where you would be helping and reaching a lot of people, not only students but parents and teachers. If you really want to be a counselor, then you reach for the stars.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
As a teacher you make such a big difference, but as a counselor you're reaching out to a huge amount of students, teachers, parents. You wear different hats. It's very rewarding, a lot of work but very rewarding.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Moral values are very important. In school we have the pillars: responsible, respectful, trustworthy, fairness. I have to be a model doing that. Church, going to church, I'm very involved with church too. Staying visible, making a difference in people's lives, but most of all taking care of you and your family.
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