Past students and parents reflect on how much care and effort Noble teachers demonstrate, and the profound difference Noble teachers can make in students' lives.
Want to meet retired teacher Susan Hughes, who is featured in this and other episodes? She will be the guest speaker at the 2025 fundraiser, Impact Knight, on March 22, 2025.
Contact Noble for more info: https://www.nobleknights.org/
Ever since I started listening to Noble community members share reflections on their past experiences, I have been thinking about one of my favorite quote from the late Dr. Maya Angelou. I am sure you have heard it. It’s the one when she said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Our alumni clearly remember how their teachers made them feel.
JAYLON:
One teacher I remember who I was, was, Catherine Spooner. She always she was my English teacher back in the day, and she always encouraged me to for my grand ideas. It was it out, take over the world. I just wanted to start my own business, and she always would be helpful in encouraging that, even when I had times where I'm frustrated or I'll get annoyed, she'll always be there to help me and calm me down.
The main difference I felt coming from my past school to Guilford Day School, to now Noble, was just the size of the classes. It was much smaller than what I had previously. In addition, the teachers were able to give more specialized attention. So before, where at my last school we had close to a class of 25 students, the teacher had a divided time between those 25 students. Noble had a class of around less than 10 students, and that teacher had enough time to specialize in each student and get advice and help.
ERIC:
When I was at my other schools before Noble, a lot of the difficulties I ran into were more of a because of a hands off approach, I'd say, or more of a hands off approach from the teachers, kind of expecting me to figure it out on my own a little bit when I didn't have a good idea of what to do and I kept losing focus. At Noble, teachers were using proximity. They were working with me more 1 on 1 because of the smaller class sizes. And they gave me some strategies to help me regain my focus and most importantly to advocate for myself when I realized that I had lost focus.
I'm proud to be Noble because they believe in their students, and they encourage students to believe in themselves. But most of all, because they establish such good relationships with the students. I think a lot of our students benefit from having relationships with the teachers and seeing how much the teachers really care about them. I think in a larger environment, it can be hard for both students and teachers to connect with each other. And so, this is, to me, one of the perfect places for students to really feel like they belong here and makes them want to succeed more.
COLBY:
I never liked school, but going to Noble really helped me kinda come out of that and enjoy what I was learning, enjoy being around my teachers, enjoy being around my friends, of course, and my classmates. You know, I really felt that that was something that was an enjoyment in my life. You know? I feel like, if I hadn't gone to Noble, then I would have been in a rough situation.
I felt like with Noble, I had the structure. I had to be, you know, in strictness as in, you know, the teachers were able to get on me when I wasn't doing good, but they were correcting me as well. And they were making sure that I was getting on track to graduate, getting on track to apply to colleges, and making sure that I was gonna be successful in life. And I don't think I would be here today if it weren't for me switching from public school in 6th grade to come to Noble in 7th grade.
I don't know if she's still there. I hope she is because she was my favorite teacher. She was like a second mom to me. She helped me, through a lot of difficult times through my life, and that teacher is, Miss Payne, Victoria Payne.
She's a big thing. Yeah. And she was a big inspiration to me. I had her as an adviser for my junior and senior year. I had her as my science teacher for 3 years. So sophomore, junior, and senior. And she just like I said, it was like I had the very second mom kind of vibe to her. She just you know, she was very caring, very supportive, helped me through a lot.
Gayle VO
You just heard from alums Jaylon Smallwood, Eric Gal, and Colby Pleasants. They all felt deeply cared for and supported at Noble Academy because they had teachers who knew them well, challenged them to grow, and believed in them. You know who else felt the power of that connection? Parents. I spoke with Michelle Malloy, whose son graduated from Noble Academy in 2018, and she told me about her sense of connection to the community, especially because of the bond her son had with his teachers.
MICHELLE:
Susan Hughes was Zachary's adviser, so she was not only his teacher, but also his adviser. And it was during I think it might have been his junior and senior year of high school. And at that point, you know, Zachary, we were interested in pursuing college, but not certain, can he, you know, can he get in? Where would he be accepted? Still a little worried about that. And through conversations with Miss Hughes, she made it very, very clear that Zachary was more than capable of excelling and doing well in college. And so, through her encouragement and I think that meant, like, words and conversations with both Zachary and us, to reassure us that he is more than capable of that, But also even just the application process where they would take time out of class to work on college applications, to work on essays. I don't know how many schools and how many teachers are really doing that for students. And, that was, again, tremendously powerful, not amazingly helpful so that we weren't doing the application and essay process at home, which could have led to some, you know, challenging moments, but the fact that it was being done here at school. But this is really the words of encouragement and instilling the confidence and and and faith that college is your choice. You are more than capable of going to college and doing well and excelling and achieving all of your goals if that's what you wanna do.
Gayle
Through 29 years of teaching, and continuing during her four of retirement, Susan Hughes has maintained a close connection with her students. She comes to campus. Alums go to her home. One alum started a tech business and fixes her computer. She used another as her real estate agent. She serves on the board of a nonprofit started by a Noble alum. She came to visit me my first few weeks as Head of School at Noble Academy, and her stories had a profound impact on me.
SUSAN:
I was a high school teacher the whole time I was here, so everything I'm saying is based primarily on what I know about the high school classroom and teachers. I'm sure that the elementary teachers and middle school teachers are the same.
We didn't choose a public school, or we taught in a public school and we knew we had something more or something different to offer. And we were all kind of drawn to this school because of the people this school serves. So that's universal across the whole faculty. And many of us stay for long periods of time. 29 years. Because it's where we know we should be. I think, you know, I would say across the board, most of the teachers here are have a passion about reaching these kids and helping them that many public school teachers have, many other teachers in other places have, but because they have much bigger classes, they have much more kind of a lane that they're supposed to stay in in terms of what they teach and how they teach it that they don't they're not always able to have their own passion show up.
And we are we this school supports the teachers' intelligence and passion and originality and innovation, and, that really frees you in the classroom to respond to all the kids in a way that's gonna help them. And and, we do I mean, there are a lot of times we have to draw the line, but there's also times when I mean, I think the reason it's such a delight year after year is because our kids are so passionate themselves, and many of them don't know it. They've been beaten down in the regular system or they feel like I've, I've got these issues. I'm not gonna be anybody, and it's so rewarding to recognize in each of our students what their strengths are. And we spend a lot of time looking at all their psychological reports, their past records, all of that. We have a meeting every week where we talk about, you know, is anybody struggling with this kid? Because what can we do? Has anybody reached him? Because I wanna do that. And I mean, it's just kind of the whole goal. I mean, we are very, and I say, I may keep speaking in the present tense like I'm still here, but I feel like my soul is still here. But we do, we pride ourselves in not changing our curriculum. The curriculum here is as rigorous and good as a curriculum in any other school. We don't we don't change the curriculum to make it easy for kids with learning differences.
What we do is try to help them find the way to conquer the areas where they struggle, and we do it with a lot of love. I mean, the relationship between the teachers and the students is probably the biggest difference here than many other schools.
Gayle
This episode is dedicated to all the teachers out there who work hard and care deeply. If you ever wonder if your efforts matter, I hope you heard just how much they do. Sometimes the words of appreciation come during the school year, and sometimes they come much later, but you are all planting seeds that grow in their own time, and at Noble Academy, you can see the proof in the success, the confidence, and the gratitude of our alumni.