Some would say Ms. Gina Bingaman has done it all. She is in her 23rd year of teaching, and is a Woodgrove original, teaching at the school since its opening in 2010.
Bingaman started her career in the Air Force before earning a degree in aerospace engineering and getting a job in California. However, according to Bingaman, “I never wanted to be an engineer. I always wanted to be a teacher.” She quit her engineering job and headed to teach at a school in Winchester, Virginia, where she replaced the former technical education teacher who had worked there for over 30 years. Bingaman worked there for several years, and was cautious about leaving when she got a phone call telling her that Woodgrove was opening soon.
“We’ve been bleeding blue and green ever since,” Bingaman states. Bingaman, who was one of the first female tech ed teachers, teaches five different subjects, and her room is always filled with students chatting and working, even during her planning periods. That does not even include the seemingly infinite amount of professional development training she does each year. Keeping everything organized with such a busy schedule can be a challenge, but Bingaman jokes that she is the “queen of the flash drives.” At one point, she had 32 flash drives. “Now I have an external hard drive that is very large. But I am very neurotic about how I keep things scheduled,” Bingamen claims.
In addition to all of her current responsibilities, Bingaman has the unique privilege of being the only teacher in Loudoun County who is authorized to teach Dual Enrollment Cybersecurity. She is receiving the credentials for it through a program called the National Cybersecurity Teachers Academy, which selected 20 teachers to send to four different colleges. For Bingaman, the process lasts three summers. Bingaman explains, “It’s intense, but what I am learning and what I can bring forward to our kids, it is worth it.”
Bingaman loves the subjects she teaches, but her favorite part of the job is the people she is teaching. Watching students grow throughout their years in her classes and become adults passionate about something is what she teaches for.
“If there is anything I can do that can help guide them or introduce them to something that excites them and then I watch it bloom, it is like a proud mother moment,” said Bingaman. She plans to keep teaching even after she eventually retires from high school education, as impacting a student and positively affecting the course of their life is what she loves doing. “It’s easy to teach the really smart, driven ones… It’s finding the ones that are what I call ‘the not-quites,’ if you will. They’re not quite something. And that’s what makes my heart come into them. Meet them where they are, and then I can teach them anything they want to learn, if they’re willing,” Bingaman reflected. “I will never walk on your soul, but I’m going to meet you right there. And I’m going to take you wherever you want to go.”
After 23 years into her teaching career, Bingaman is still as passionate as ever about teaching. Even if students do not consider teaching at all as a potential career for themselves, they should still consider the upsides. “People shouldn’t overlook what you really can accomplish in your life with teaching,” Bingaman expressed.