Home Again, Home Again But Still Looking South

Last night I was so sleep deprived I fell asleep hours before what is usually considered socially acceptable for a Saturday night on a college campus. And unfortunately I was in Gaston long enough to have set my internal clock to wake up at 6:30am...

It is certainly nice to be home, yet I miss watching the sunrise over the lake, Christine's humor, the students excited faces, and so many more little things that made this trip to Gaston amazing. We ended our week at the school with 6th grade Pride Time, where we got to know some students even better and had them make costumes out of toilet paper, letting them essentially play for the last half an hour of their Friday while still working on skills such as team work and communication. It was an excellent note to end on, but it also made leaving that much harder. After having such a long week of teaching, waking up at hours some of us aren't used to (Clare), and dealing with disciple issues in the high school, it was wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy getting to know some of the amazing middle school students.

This was my fifth Alternative Break trip I have taken through the University of Maryland, and my last. A number of people told me not to return to an issue and location that I had already experienced, to branch out to learn about a new issue and experience a new culture. But going on this trip again was the best choice I could have made. I was so lucky to love the issue, location, and both trip leaders- I knew the trip would be amazing this year before Clare and Elma even started planning, and it WAS. I could not have asked to end my AB experience on a higher note, with a more energetic, caring, and thoughtful group of students all falling in love with a school Clare, Elma and I had fallen in love with over the past year.

I also want to say that I am glad that everyone on the trip did not fall blindly in love with the school, but rather loved it while they critiqued it. For the most part we listened to what the high school principal had to say about warning us against thinking that KIPP is the solution. KIPP is a charter school but what we need to fix are the public schools; we can be on the KIPP bandwagon until we find something better, something that aims to solve the issue of education on a wider scale. While we all agree that the middle school is something more than special, something that can give you chills when you realize the implications of what they are accomplishing and how much the students get out of the unique culture they have established, we need to keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of students that aren't at KIPP. These students need a solution too, and replicating the culture of KIPP in every school may not be realistic. However, the students in the area surrounding Gaston are truly lucky to have the chance to attend this school, and years down the line it pays off in the form of an influx of college acceptance letters and scholarship money.

This trip was not only about rural education and charter schools, but also about the lives of teachers. Through out our service activities we learned about how hard of a job it really is, how long tracking REALLY takes, how much time lesson planning for three days takes, and how important it is to step into a classroom energetic and prepared. Some of us struggled to keep our students interested, and some were conflicted about being upset at the disrespect a few students showed while remembering ourselves as acting the same way in high school. One of my own students came up to me on my last day of teaching intercession and apologized for her classmates. She said she thinks some of the other students acted the way that they did since as college students we are so close to their age, we could almost be a brother or a sister. However, she wanted me to know that because of our age she respected us even more, saying that it takes a lot to go down there, and teach (for many of us- for the first time), noting that she knew it was an experience that was likely more difficult for us than some of the other (older, more experienced) intercession teachers. Hearing that meant a lot to me, and I know the other UMD students I passed the message on to appreciated it too. The job of a teacher is certainly something all of us walked away with a deeper understanding of and a greater sense of respect for.

Thank you to all the teachers who talked with us about their experience at GCP, let us invade their personal space, and bought us delicious cookie cake. Thank you Rachel and Jim for letting us stay in your AMAZING home, and a special thank you to the students for greeting us every day with a smile. (We're already talking about driving down for the 5k race, over the summer, and/or for a fund-raising basketball game.)

It was 10 days I can guarantee none of us will forget.

-Sophie