“For some people it’s a job, for some people it’s a career, for some people it’s a calling. If you get to the point where teaching is a calling for you, embrace it,” said Wiscasset Middle High School social studies teacher Mary Ellen Bell. For her, teaching has been a calling, and for the last 32 years she has embraced it. This month Bell will retire after all 32 years in the school.

Bell grew up in a family where education was “certainly a strong family value,” she said in a phone interview. She came to Maine when she was 15 for a wilderness canoe camp and returned to study one of the first interdisciplinary majors in history and religion at Bates College in Lewiston. After completing a master’s degree at the University of New Hampshire, she started at Wiscasset in 1988 and has stayed ever since.

Bell has seen many changes throughout her tenure, including the Maine Yankee years the post-Maine Yankee struggles, and the change to a middle high school. And now, she ends her career in the middle of a pandemic. “I was deeply sad because I realized I’d taught my last (in-person) class in March…and then to be looking at (the students) through screens it’s just been a very sad thing for me.” But despite all the changes and challenges, she said, “I never would have stayed with this if I didn’t love it.”

For Bell, the administrative turnover over her career has been a definite challenge, particularly in the last few years as she and others carried vast institutional knowledge. However, she feels she has had many supportive administers over the years who have allowed her “to be as creative as I wanted to be…I’ve always felt like I could do that here.” She said her colleagues are among the many highlights. “My colleagues, that’s been part of the magic of Wiscasset,” she said of teachers such as Ralph Keyes, who she has taught with all 32 years. As a whole, she said, “this is still the sort of small school that we have great relationships with our students…it is like family in a lot of ways.”

Her advice for students aspiring to be teachers one day? “As much as you possibly can, push for mentoring…I think that people coming in need mentoring and not just one year. It takes a number of years to become a good teacher. You’ll always be a learner if you’re a teacher.” She also recalled advice from former Wiscasset High School principal Sue Poppish: “Mary Ellen, you need to learn how to take care of yourself as you’re teaching.” Bell said this advice was invaluable and a great reminder of how easy it is to forget that you have a personal life when you’re giving so committed to the job.

While Bell sees herself eventually going to work part-time, perhaps at a nonprofit with a focus on education or the environment, she will take a few well-deserved months to recharge.