Marie Martin

Student

“You’ll find older teachers and older students at SMC. But those teachers’ experience means that you’ll find any kind of job when you leave here.”

“Studying is very ‘in vogue’ for older students,” says Marie Martin, “because we have older teachers who’ve spent their lives helping others. And I’ve been coming here—off and on—for about seven years,” says the talented nurse. “But now I’m branching out into all kinds of new fields, like computers, child development, and art.” Certified in Recreational Leadership, Marie has focused on one field where she feels she’ll make the greatest impact: the welfare of children. And she’ll enter this field with a wealth of empathy.

“I’ve had arthritis since I was 19, had seizures in the ’80s, and started falling to the ground in about ’96,” she recalls. “But I’ve pushed myself, kept active, and spent as much time as I could with children, because they never let you go into the past or future. They keep you in the ‘here and now.’ And in this way,” Marie continues, “you’ll never get old or sick because you just don’t have time!”

A natural healer, Marie hopes to operate her own care center one day for “attention deficit or hyperactive children. You know, the ‘problem kid.’ But these are kids who are just altogether misunderstood. They usually just have some neural damage, and I can certainly relate to that.” Marie says that she has great admiration for all her SMC instructors. “But the best for me has been Edie Spain in Child Growth & Development. It’s the hardest of all my classes,” she says. “But she takes the time to teach the whole class, including those amongst us who need just a little more help.” 

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