Unexpected snow day!

January 22, 2014

Upon waking up this morning, we noticed something different about Gaston.  The usual green and sunny scenery was coated with a thin layer of fresh, twinkling snow.  Early that morning, we received a notification via text message alerting us that the KIPP school was closed due to "heavy" snow in North Carolina.  We all knew that if we just sat in the house all day we'd go stir crazy so we decided to get out and go bowling.  Since Gaston is a relatively small town, we drove an hour away to get to the nearest bowling alley--which was an adventure within itself.  

After bowling, we came back to the cabin and had amazing fajitas for dinner made by Leslie and Annie banannie. Then in place of a reflection, we watched a 80-minute film called "American Teacher" which explored the profession of teaching in a public setting in America today. After the movie, we discussed the pros and cons of teaching in public school, emphasizing possible solutions to bring change to the current public school conditions. #theend

Chris & Bria (no) #briayes

Tech-Free Tuesday

Starting at exactly midnight, all of our phones were sent to airplane mode and exiled to a basket where they will stay until midnight tonight. 

How was it?? Well...our first Insta-free day proved eye opening. Before 8 o’clock I had reached for my phone at least 5 times, whether to take a picture, look something up, or even check the time. I even felt inconvenienced when I had to find a computer to look something up, talk about first world problems.

Yet the whole day was not us mourning the loss of our handheld electronics. Midnight also started the first day of “Secret Angel.” Throughout the day we saw a range of good deeds from the subtle lunch box notes to hallway serenades with a borrowed pink flower guitar. #notmeanbutleanqueen

KIPP was Productive!

-We laminated, cut, pasted, and worked with the short and long vowel sounds!

-Completed a few crafty (and inspirational) bulletin boards.

-Many Spanish tests were corrected by our marvelous team of Spanish speaking ladies. S/O to Steffi, Tricia, Kristina, Leslie and Michelle

-We met with our partner teachers to schedule our upcoming co-teaching lesson for the next couple days.

While it was only 50 degrees, the impending snow caused school to end early. The basketball game was canceled, but we made the most of our newly found time. We made up theme songs for group members and took pictures with those sleeping, with REAL cameras. #shping!

Our team leaders led a wonderful compliment card circle which prefaced a feast of three platters of homemade baked mac and cheese. (Shout out to Momma Steffi!!)

Post dinner, we continued to decompress by baking, playing music, braiding our hair together…the usual. Despite the Hootenanny, we brought it together for reflection, discussing our common and uncommon ground. Yet, the night was still young! There was still brownies, blondies and Breyers to enjoy. And an even bigger treat...it's SNOWING!

YAY AWB Gaston 2014

Annie & Tricia

MLK Day: Day Of Service

Today, we awoke bright and early in the morning, leaving after a nice and hearty breakfast at around 8:00 a.m. Michelle ate her oatmeal in the car, experimenting with some dried cranberries stirred in. Leslie had Special K for the first time! It was a great day for everyone. It truly was.

We gathered around 8 a.m. with the Landers in the kitchen, and discussed the plan for the day of service ahead. Piled cozily into the two vans, we followed Jim Lander in his pickup truck to the site. If I speak for everyone, we were all astounded by the progress of the house! It was quite the feat. Upon being introduced to the volunteers, we were all surprised to learn that the average age was between 65-70. Wowzah! They were all in such great shape, despite their age. We then split into two groups, one to build a shed, the other to organize the restore shop (similar to a Goodwill). We met Ms. Madie, a vivacious little women around 80 years young. She was quite something, price gun in hand, she shuffled around the store “organizing” various donated items. In the back of the store, we organized other donated items, including Christmas and Halloween goods. Michelle and Frankie Tomato cleaned window panes and found a cluster of baby spiders chillin in the corner of a pane. This prompted the many photo shoots, featuring a life-sized hashtag #chris #frankietomato #hashtag and multiple attempts to spell out “Gaston” with our bodies. At around 2, we wrapped up the tasks we had been working on, and after enjoying the wonderfully warm weather outside for a bit, came back into the shop for lunch. Not expecting much, we all oohed and aahed at the Crockpots full of steaming vegetable stew and chicken pasta. When the boxes of colorful cupcakes, baked goods, and an artfully decorated cake were brought out, we might as well have melted of happiness. As we ate, a teacher from the Cornerstone Christian School came for a bit more discussion on the differences in the local school systems. She spoke about how people in the community feel about KIPP and the curriculum differences. We then departed from our service at habitat excited for the afternoon ahead!

Once we got home, we gathered a group of seven brave souls to go for a nice January polar plunge in the Roanoke Rapids Lake. Even after being submerged for only a few seconds, we emerged shivering, our skin felt as if with millions of tiny needles. Peter followed up with a second plunge, staying in for a full minute, a feat we agreed was equally courageous and insane. After, the girls followed up with a group shower.

Later that evening, Jim took us for a ride in his boat in groups of five. We learned a bit about the area. Apparently, Roanoke Rapids Lake is only one of three lakes formed by the dams, the other two being Lake Gaston and Kerr Lake. 






After the boat ride, we hung out on the block and enjoyed the sunset, motivated by the glowing pink sky to greet the last boat group with our own rendition of the Lion King’s opening scene. Queenies was chosen without consent to be our Simba.

That night we dined like kings on breakfast foods prepared by Sophia and Peter, assisted by Annie, Kristina, Queenies, Michelle, and several others. As always, it was delightful.

For reflection, we discussed things that we have in our life, both material and abstract, that we take for granted in our daily lives. As our trip has progressed, we have been able to have real and frank discussions about sensitive subjects, and last night was a great example of our ability to communicate with respect. We ended on a light note with a game of STOOPID! A game that left me (Leslie) in tears, fortunately from laughing. We then ended the night on a dark note. Our staff advisor, Tricia, suggested we have a 24 hour no phone challenge. Also, we became angels, secret angels. Brendan took a video of him scaring Tricia. The end.

Yo fweinds

Michelle n Leslie <3

Sunday Hiking!

This morning, most of our group went to various Sunday services. The experience was wonderful and we even saw one of the KIPP teachers at a congregation. After services, we went shopping at Food Lion to stock back up on groceries.... (#AWBfifteen). We arrived back at the Landers’ home and got ready to head to Medoc State Park. After the one-hour drive, we ate lunch on the picnic benches. Finally, we started the four-mile hike.

The hills are alive.....

Into the woods!!

We took a group photo on a bridge and experimented more with the slow-motion feature on the iPhone. We kept busy during the difficult hike by singing Disney songs and having conversations. After two hours, we were finished with the hike and drove back to the Landers. On the way back, we made a pit stop at the Cookout, our new favorite place, to get some yummy milkshakes to hold us over until dinner.

Selfies on selfies on selfies #theusual

Peter climbing trees.... #normal

COOKOUT!! #thebest #milshakes #yumyumyum

The rest of the evening consisted of football watching and more games, like cranium. Erin and Michelle cooked us some amazing chili and cornbread for dinner. After dinner, the second football game was more enjoyable than the first because the Seahawks and the 49ers had such a close game. We can’t wait for the Broncos vs. Seahawks in the Super bowl in 2 weeks!! #football #sporty

Today was a nice and relaxing day as we prepared to go to the Habitat for Humanity site tomorrow. We can't wait!! 

-Adam + Kristina :) 

#WeekendAdventures

Saturday, Jan 18 -
Today, we visited el #museo of Roanoke Rapids Canal. Our tour guide was Mr. Pierce and he had a fantastic #chinstrap. We learned about how a canal works, local history of #roanokerapids #canal, and famous figures of the town. Mr. Pierce also shared insight on the racial and demographic issues of the local school system. He also smelled #amazing.

After the el museo, we all hopped into the white vans (#teambigvan) and rode to River Falls Park where it was #frozen!!! #welovefrozen #wesangfrozen #thecoldneverbotheredmeanyways. We took a lot of jumping pictures and played team bonding games. Our favorite was Steffi's game called Wizards, Elves, and Giants, where we divided into teams (#goteamtwo) and got to chase each other. 

Okay enough with the hashtags...people are speaking in them now and it is unacceptable. Later that night we engaged in a thrilling, emotional, and intense discussion about MLK, race, civil rights, and identity, facilitated by Tricia. The discussion was over two hours and we all came out of it thankful to be in such a safe space. 

Afterwards to blow off some steam we played boom-chika-boom-boom and THE STOOPID GAME!!!!!

Today, we visited home of the Pirates (arghhhhh!) at East Carolina University.  Christa Monroe, Lead Coordinator of the Office of Professional Development and Student Outreach gave all of us a fantastic informational session regarding the programs at ECU that help to bring new teachers to the rural areas of North Carolina. ECU has a partnership with 38 counties within Lathum for student teaching. The college of education includes six program areas for elementary school, content areas in middle school, and information technology. They also have the college of Human Ecology which certifies birth through kindergarden educators. We also learned that a majority of students stay to teach within the area after graduation. However, these new teachers do not have an increasing pay scale and no longer have tenure.  She gave us really useful and cute ECU spirited school supplies to take home!

We also learned that ECU is the college of Cheese on our tour hosted by Erin and Sophia. Founded by Sir Walterdextercambell, the college of Cheese thrived in its own independence as a nation state bringing in cheese enthusiasts from across the land. 

I (Brendan) was upset upon returning to the Landers' since I was told I should forget about being admitted to the college of cheese. So I took out my frustrations by running alongside Frankie Tomato and Mafia Erin across the Gaston farmlands. 

Later that day, we played two very intense games of Mafia narrated by Tricia and Chris.  In the hopes of chowing down on some Dairy Queen Blizzards, we ventured out in the vast wilderness of In The Middle of Nowhere, NC, only to find that it closed as soon as we got there (Chris tried to negotiate with the workers but failed).  

However, there are stars even in the darkest of skies. AKA- Cookout! Our first experience of southern fine dining. Chris let us all have a sample of his Peach Cobbler milkshake... to find that there was only one way to classify it: Sweet and Cold. 

We found that Mafia was too stressful and intense, so we played Cranium...but it turned out to be just as intense (if not more). Perhaps we are just an intense group of people :)

~B. White & Frankie Tomato

First Full Day at KIPP!

Today was the first full day at KIPP GCP! We started the day off with a major lists of tasks, everything from cleaning fish bowls, to grading test, making bulletin boards to reading with students. Before tackling our to-do list we observed classes in both the middle school and high school to compare and contrast them. Some of things that we noticed were that the middle school classrooms were more focused on implementing discipline by using group cheers (such as 1-2-3 G-C-P when they all opened their binders at the same time). The high school was geared toward independent study to prepare students for college. Something that we noticed across all school was how college oriented they are, it is even pushed in the primary school. Aside from the students, we observed that the teachers were relatively young across all grade levels and there were many first year teachers. We perceived that this correlated with the open-mindedness of the campus and the non-traditional teaching techniques. At lunch we had the opportunity to eat and talk with several students.  Many of us found that the students were willing to have conversations outside their comfort zones and shared their perspective on KIPP. After school, a few of us stayed to watch the Poetry Outloud Competition. We were impressed by the willingness of the students to present in front of a large audience. Also all of the teachers that put in extra time to help with it and support the students. All in all we had a very long but very rewarding day at KIPP GCP; we can’t wait to go back!

-Sophia & Peter