ISHPEMING TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WLUC) – From teaching pythons a lesson to teaching lessons to middle schoolers.

Mary Peterson is a teaching apprentice at Aspen Ridge Middle School. She teaches 7th-grade science. Before that, Peterson was a stay-at-home mom and a wildlife biologist.

After her kids went back to school, Peterson needed something to keep her busy. So, she applied for an apprenticeship through Talent Together. It’s a Michigan-based program that pays for your education while paying you to work a full-time job.

“You want to put teachers in classrooms that you want your children in,” Chelsea Norton, a Talent Together Educator Development Specialist, said. “Mary is somebody that I know I would want my girls (to have) as a teacher.”

Peterson’s job as a wildlife biologist took her from Alaska to Japan, and then to capturing pythons in Florida.

“We would have traplines out there to try to make sure they weren’t getting into the Keys,” said Peterson. “We would have to check our traplines and then, when we’d find them in the traps, we’d have to take them out and bring them to get handled.”

Peterson was born and raised in Ishpeming. She’s coached in the school district for almost a decade, and her father was a teacher. Peterson saw teaching as a natural fit.

“When I really sat down and thought about it, it was a pretty natural progression for me to get into this so I could stay in the science field and I found out that I really love working with kids,” said Peterson.

Norton appreciates Peterson’s ability to self-reflect.

“She is somebody who is constantly wanting to do better and that’s something you can’t teach,” said Norton. “That’s something that we love to see in teachers because our students, their needs are changing.”

There are only 27 days left of class in the NICE Community School District. A TV6 reporter asked Peterson if she could go back to the first day of school, on September 3rd, what advice she would give herself.

“I would tell her to relax and not be so nervous and to know that everything is gonna come together,” Peterson said. “You’re gonna learn so much that eventually you’re gonna feel so comfortable and you’re not gonna be panicking and you’re gonna have a lot of fun.”

Capturing pythons and teaching 7th grade are two different kinds of fun. Peterson is happy to trade in the wildlife classroom for this one.