Profe Gilbert is a Spanish teacher here at the upper school. This is his 11th year working here, and he is now in his first year working as one of the associate deans for grades nine and ten.
Profe Gilbert was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at UNC Memorial. Gilbert tells the story of his birth as this: “The story goes that in the nursery after I was born, a basketball player walked by the nursery and saw me, and he went on to become the world’s greatest basketball player, Michael Jordan.” His family eventually moved to Clemson, South Carolina, where he spent the rest of his childhood. Gilbert’s first job was working as a stocker for a supermarket in South Carolina called Winn-Dixie. He said during the summers, he worked with master carpenters to help build a house from the ground up.
When asked what the wildest thing he did in high school was, he said, “I was a very obedient kid, very. I was a nerd. I was always on the honor roll. I didn’t really do too many adventurous things that were considered bad.”
His hobbies as a teenager included playing the euphonium. His symphonic jazz band at his high school was very good, and many of them got invitations to be a part of an organization called the Sound of America. It is an organization based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania that recruits high school students from all over the US who excel in either vocals or on an instrument to audition to be a part of this ensemble that’s comprised of 250 students from all over the US.
Gilbert explained that after a July 4 farewell concert, the band toured Europe for a few weeks, performing daily across several different countries. That was his first time overseas, and “that was the moment that changed my life, that put me on a course to be where I am right now. I got that exposure. I got outside of my comfort zone in Clemson, South Carolina. I was exposed to another country, but more so, I was exposed to more people from the US, which I didn’t have growing up in a small town in South Carolina. So that set everything in motion for my life.”
Along with playing in the band, he also did “high jump, marching band, and was also on the basketball team. In my 10th-grade year, I was on a JV team. I chose not to play in 11th grade because I wanted to focus on my grades, which were already good. Really, I just didn’t want all the attention because I was pretty good. And then my 12th-grade year, I played, and I was the sixth man coming off the bench in the first game, the next game I was starting.”
Gilbert attended college at Charleston University, which was a popular choice for people from his high school. In the beginning, he said he was just “taking classes with no direction. I was just taking my general education classes. I remember one of the guys who lived in the apartments where I lived said, ‘Hey Jayson, you studied Spanish?’ I told him I did, and he immediately said that I should study abroad in Chile. He had just gotten back from the program they ran in Chile. I went to the study abroad office, got information, and I went to study abroad in Chile the following year, which was my junior year, and I knew this was what I wanted to do.” He said that he loves Spanish, traveling, and being abroad, so he was able to put all of those things together and work in the Peace Corps.
Gilbert said that he tried to avoid the “rat race” for ten years, but he eventually realized that he was out of money and needed to get a real job. He spent 10 years working in the Peace Corps in countries including Colombia, Japan, and Bolivia. He says his favorite memory since he has been here has been seeing kids “put things together,” or finally understand the Spanish subject they have been struggling with, or the high jump technique [Gilbert coaches high jump for the SSSAS Track and Field team] they have been working on. The only previous teaching experience Gilbert has had apart from SSSAS was teaching English to both students and adults in Bolivia, Colombia, and Japan as part of a Peace Corps operation.
When elaborating more on his Peace Corps experience, Gilbert mentions that he was actually featured in a documentary that the Peace Corps Colombia did on him as promotional footage. The documentary focused on his experience as a volunteer, as his group of volunteers was the first back in Colombia after a 29-year absence, which was mainly due to the violence and crime happening in the country.
Profe Gilbert even said that when he traveled with the Peace Corps, he got a “glimpse of what it’s like to be famous.” He said that he was always shaking people’s hands, holding babies, and taking pictures. He tells the story of his first few days in peace corps bolivia, saying, “I just got into my site, and I was walking to the market with my Bolivian family, where they have a shop. They sold the coca leaf there. I always went to learn about the coca leaf, hang out with them, and everybody in town knew them. I walked from my house to the market, which was six blocks, and somebody on the street had said, ‘hola Jason.’ So everybody knew who I was, because I was the Peace Corps volunteer there in town, and they were curious to get to know me.”
