You are cordially invited to stories of impact, in this episode, and at our Impact KNIGHT on March 22. Karla Davis, from The Voice, will be our vocalist, and we have a joyful evening planned dedicated to the impact of Noble Academy.
You are cordially invited to stories of impact, in this episode, and at our Impact KNIGHT on March 22. Karla Davis, from The Voice, will be our vocalist, and we have a joyful evening planned.
https://www.nobleknights.org/impactknight
Gayle VOs from EPISODE Impact KNIGHT in ready to produce:
Today I am so excited to talk about a very special upcoming event at Noble academy! We will be visited live and in person by some of the voices that you. might have heard this season on this show as we gather together at 6 p. m. March 22 for Impact KNIGHT.
If you haven't heard about Impact KNIGHT, it's an opportunity to joyfully celebrate the impact Noble has on the community, and that the community has on Noble. Our guest speaker will be none other than the frequent blue and gold chat guest and beloved retired teacher, Susan Hughes, who worked here for 29 years. And our vocalist isn't someone you've heard here on the podcast before, but even better someone you might have heard on the voice. Her name is Karla Davis and her songs really make an impact. and the rest of Impact KNIGHT will include the things you might expect like an auction and food and drinks, and some things you might not expect that will just have to remain surprises until you show up in a few weeks with your ticket. In the meantime, I'm devoting the rest of this episode to reminding us all of the why behind Impact KNIGHT and the why behind Noble academy. To begin with, Noble's impact is educational.
To begin with, Noble's impact is educational.
Dylan:
So, what helped me to succeed at Noble versus the other school I was going to was Noble helped me learn in the way that I learn the best, I guess. So, the other school is a cookie cutter school. If you didn't meet their mold, then they didn't want to help you and that just didn't work for me. It didn't work for other students there as well. So coming to Noble helped me improve on the way that I learned to succeed later in life.
Now I'm an airline pilot and I fly for a charter airline.
Christi:
Look what he was able to do. Not only did he improve his reading and written expression, but that carried over into other areas like social studies and science. where those things weren't so overwhelming … So, right now, our son is enrolled at UNCW. He's a freshman there and he is doing well. He just finished his first semester and he enjoys it. Actually his best grade was in English.
Gayle:
Hand-in-hand with Noble’s educational impact is the impact it makes on student confidence and overall well-being.
Clare:
I had the best English teacher I've ever had at Noble. And previously, I had had writing teachers that told me that, you know, negative things about my writing all my life. And so, I just kind of hated writing. I hated English, everything like that. And I also didn't think I could do math. I didn't like anything about it. But, at Noble, I started being able to do it. And it was so foreign to me because these teachers believed in me and I was kind of ahead of other people and I was, it was just so confusing to me to be honest because, it was just foreign and the teachers actually asked me to help other students too. So I was actually more of a leader in the classroom as well, which I love that role. So I think that was probably the main thing that I loved about Noble is that they really helped me get my confidence back in academics. , and it was really special for me because I was about to go to college and I needed that confidence back.
Colby:
I got to be more confident, became a better student, and, I just was allowed to kind of express myself and I played a lot of sports at Noble, and I was just able to be myself at Noble, and that's what really helped me out, a lot. And it's probably one thing that I loved about Noble is that I was able to just be myself.
Greg:
With the push and confidence I gained at Noble, I ended up going to college and now work in finance, which I never would have imagined.
Cameron: Noble really prepared me, gave me a sense of community and teamwork and team building, and just helped me build my confidence all through the four years I was here. And then when I graduated and went to college, Noble also gave me a sense of advocacy and responsibility.
Efren:
He has definitely been more of an advocate for himself. Last couple of years, he's even gone and has volunteered to provide shadow visits for kids, and even given tours of to the new students who they've come in, which is something I never would have seen him do when he started because he's much more comfortable in his level of knowledge and experience of the school. That he can advocate for the school is good. It gives him that comfort to be out there and be like, “Yeah, I'd love to talk about Noble, what they've done for me, and how it'll help your son or daughter when they come to school here.”
Meredith [from Parker and Meredith Boylan Beacon interview]
And I will say as a parent, we were always so impressed with Noble for when the student would have the yearly meeting
and the way that it's structured, the first time we sat down freshman year, and he and he's the one running the meeting, telling us by PowerPoint what his disability is, what his thinking is, what he's working on, what his goals are, I think that was a huge help to do that for 4 years and then transition to college. I don't think I don't think he would have had that insight and those words and that vocabulary if he had not been – I know it was mandatory, but that you, you did that for yourself. That was for you…
Parker: It was, yeah.
Gayle:
The impact Noble makes isn't just on students. families will tell you this themselves.
Declan: When we get together with her grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins and so on, there have been a ton of remarks from people, like how much happier she seems, how much more confident she seems, with her head up.
Adelle:
I remember calling my husband back in Australia in tears, saying, you know, ‘I have found it.’ It was like going to Disneyland.
Joy:
Noble community has been so warm and welcoming. I have found a group of moms that we walk – it started out Tuesdays Thursdays, and now it's morphed to almost every morning, and that's been lovely. The fact that we are all here, maybe not for the same reasons, but because we needed something for our children, with their learning differences, it opens up these friendships and relationships where you don't feel judged, you it's just you feel like you're coming in to a supportive, understanding group of wonderful families with wonderful children.
Gayle:
Noble makes an important economic impact on our community, not just because we employ outstanding educators who change lives, but because our graduates go on to make important contributions to our local workforce.
Susan:
I have a number of our students go into their own business.
So, we're talking about kids with ADHD who have standard issues in, you know, timelines and, you know, having their check off list of things to do, and they start their own businesses. I'm thinking of several. One boy just loves to cut down trees. I mean, he loves – you know, he's strong.
As soon as he graduated, he started his own tree business and we've all used him. We've all called him during the years. I mean, he graduated probably, you know, 15 years ago, 15, 18 years ago. It's hard to keep it straight because there are so many years, but we've all called him. You know, he just loves what he does. He's just a quiet, hardworking boy who is just as happy as he can be. He's right where he wanted to be. I have another student who was fixing some of the teachers' computers when he was here. Just a technological mind that was, you know, brilliant. And, he runs his own website tech business and has, you know, major businesses that he does their websites and updates them and cleans up their computers, you know, on a regular basis. I mean, I don't know all what he does because IT is not my not my strongest suit, but he helps me a lot with my computer too. And we've had some people who have become realtors.
I have one of my past students, I've used as my real estate agent. She loves what she's doing. We have a couple of people who went into catering because they love to cook and they're really good at it. I mean, there's I'm sure there's a lot of other kids that I haven't been able to keep up with. We've had several kids start their own landscaping business. They've all been successful.
It's interesting to see that many of their careers are hands-on. It's what they know. It's what they do well. But they also have been able to sustain that business because they believe they can. They believe in themselves. I think a lot of them got that from being here.
Gayle:
That last voice you heard was Mrs. Susan Hughes, the impactful teacher who will our guest speaker at Impact KNIGHT.
Greg:
My favorite class was definitely English with Miss Hughes. She got me to enjoy books in a way I never had before, even with mandatory summer reading. Before, my mom would force me to read, and I just couldn't do it. But in Miss Hughes' class, I truly began to enjoy reading.
Clare: Sometimes you just have a teacher and everything they teach just kind of registers with you. But she respected me. She was one of the teachers that got me to help other students. She trusted me and, like it was mutual respect. She respected me. So when I felt uncomfortable or I had a question, I always knew I could go to her. She was also my advisor. So, there was also that connection, but she also picked interesting texts to read and she made it interesting. She was very forgiving and understanding. There's just, and she was just a bright face to see. I just, especially for an advisor who you see in the morning. I just loved Ms. Hughes for sure.
Lisa:
I would say to Miss Hughes, you absolutely changed a family and a child's life by your kindness. And you gave him the confidence to be his best person to maximize his potential. He now gives presentations and writes papers and you would never know that he had any difficulty in his life previously. You absolutely changed a family's perspective and their life. Um you gave us really our child back and you gave us everything back educationally that we had hoped for our child. And when Glenn says when you looked over your glasses and said to us
Glen:
I think we got this individual learning plan thing down.
Lisa:
That meant the world to us and you did have it down and we believed you and you did. And for all the parents that um I think you've helped um with their children and you've taught their children. Um thank you. We appreciate you. We love you. We talk about you all the time. Whenever Simon is writing papers or doing presentations, we always say Miss Hughes would not believe how good you're doing and how good you've done. We really um we really appreciate everything you did.
Gayle:
Impact KNIGHT on March 22 at 6 p m is your chance to be part of Noble's continuing legacy. show up, have a wonderful time and leave proud to have a part and securing Noble's future impact for generations to come. and if you really can't make it that night, our Noble auction is live now see our website or our show notes for more details.