Reboul Interview

The speaker discusses their time as a student at South Aiken High School and the changes they have seen since then. They mention stricter policies on tardiness, unchanged faculty members, their decision to become a teacher, and the similarities and differences in the school building and style of dress. The speaker also talks about the former smoking areas at the school. It is, it starts it and then you just... What year did you graduate South Aiken High School? I graduated South Aiken High School in 2014. Cam, move it closer to your mouth. So that it'll pick you up. Okay. Click the stop button. Yeah, you gotta press the stop. What year did you graduate South Aiken High School? I graduated in 2014. What memory do you have from South Aiken High School while being a student? Multiple. Can you name one, at least? I can. Yeah. Can you, like, could you, like, pause it? What kind of policy changes have you seen? Well, things definitely seem a lot more lenient nowadays. For example, back whenever I was going to South Aiken, any tardy, every single one tardy was a write-up. We had this thing called the suite booth, where if once the tardy bell rang, you weren't in the classroom, the teachers would lock the door and you would have to go to the suite booth to basically pick up your write-up and then you were allowed back into your class. So nowadays students think that every three is unfair. Imagine every one. I heard about that in middle school. Are there any faculty members that work here that were at school the same time as you? If so, who? Yes, actually multiple different teachers. So Mrs. Mason, I had her for AP Stats. She is exactly the same. Mrs. Poppy, I had her for Physical Science. It was like a precursor to Chemistry. She is exactly the same, hasn't changed a bit. Mrs. DiGiacomo, I never had for English, but I did have her for a study hall. Of course, she is exactly the same. Coach Collins, I had for Social Studies. He is still teaching Social Studies here. He hasn't changed. It's actually pretty crazy because I don't know how much of it is nostalgia and I don't know how much of it is just like a foggy memory, but from my recollection, none of the teachers have aged a day. They are all exactly like how I remember them. Why did you decide to start teaching at South Anglia High School? Because, I mean, for one, it was my alma mater. I went to South Anglia at the time. I didn't think much of it. But then looking back, it was like, wow, I actually had a pretty good high school experience. You know, no one thinks about that at the time. And then I had left the site to become a teacher because personally I feel as though the site is not rewarding at all and that a lot of people there are disingenuous, whereas teaching, you have to have a passion for it if you're going to become a teacher. No one teaches just for the money. They teach because it's actually rewarding at the end of the day. Was the alma mater the same? Yeah, it was exactly the same. Really? Nothing's changed? Nothing's changed. And the song? The song was the same. Same lyrics. Okay. Has anything about teaching changed since you went here? I mean, yeah. I mean, we didn't have laptops, school-issued laptops. We had to carry around textbooks. My book bag was always like 50 pounds. Like I said, with the tardies, that was much different. They're a lot more lenient now as far as every three tardies. Same thing with ID badges. My first two years teaching here, y'all didn't even have ID badges. Now they just got implemented. And now, you know, if you forget them, you got to get a new one, whereas whenever I was going to South Aiken, if you forgot it, not only did you have to get a new one, you also got a free write-up. So there's another thing that y'all should consider yourselves lucky. What club did they have while you were a student and now it's gone? If so, explain what they did. I don't think that there was any club that we now don't have, but there were a lot of the same clubs. I was never really a part of any of them. I wish I would have been a part of an academic team had I known about it back whenever I went to South Aiken because that's what I coach. But besides that, it was a lot of the same. There was a drama club like Mu Alpha Theta, so a math club. You know, there were all the organizations associated with NJ. Who was your principal when you went to South Aiken High School? When I went to South Aiken, my principal was Mr. Skipper. Do you remember the assistant principals? Yes. So there was a Mrs. Messick. The assistant principals, as they do nowadays, they sometimes change. I don't remember who it was before, but there was Coach Holt, who then became the principal at Aiken High, who now has an even higher position in Edgefield District, is my understanding. And I think we had one other. I think we might have only had two assistant principals or two vice principals. And if that's the case, it was Mrs. Messick and then Coach Holt or Mr. Holt while Mr. Skipper was the principal. From what you can remember, is there something different in the building that was there before and that isn't here now or is here now that wasn't there before? That is an excellent question. I mean, as a whole, the school really hasn't changed that much. I mean, there have been slight upgrades. Like we had different projectors whenever I was a student here. They weren't as nice as the projectors we currently use for the SMART Board. Of course, they're currently implementing the new audio surround sound. Obviously, that didn't exist when I went to South Aiken. But besides really those two minor upgrades, things are pretty much untouched. I know there were blackboards and they had the wooden doors installed instead of metal ones. I'll take your word for it. Was there a wind time when you were here? No, there was not. I believe there were three separate lunch periods. I think what it was was depending on your fourth period, if you had first lunch, you went to lunch first, and then after lunch for lunches two and three, that was your fourth period. So like block schedule? Not block schedule, but like when we have no power hour instead? Yeah, similar to it was done in a similar way to whenever wind time gets revoked from you guys. If you had second lunch, you'd go to your fourth period for half the time. Then when the bell rang, you'd go to lunch and then you'd come back for like another 20 or 25 minutes. If you had third lunch, you know, you would go to your class at the beginning for first and second lunch and then you would leave there and go to third. And similar to now, we couldn't just roam around however we pleased. It was if you had first lunch, you had to be in the Commons for first lunch. Were there agendas? There were agendas, but I don't think they were self-making issued. Like I think we would just buy, you know, like a run-of-the-mill agenda at like Staples and there were no like passes like there are in the agendas. It was just a piece of paper with, you know, Issa Marie to Buddy Club and then you'd write the time and the date and then the teacher would initial. So it's what we do now if you all forget your agendas is how like passes worked back in, you know, the ancient times. Was the style like the way that kids dress now, was it the same while you were a kid? So as far as the actual like style of dressing, from what I can remember, it was pretty much the same. That, as far as visually, that hasn't changed much, but verbally it's changed exponentially. Like y'all use words and phrases now that didn't exist back then like this, you know, no cap on my mama cuz, stuff like that. That just didn't exist. It was different words and phrases. Yeah. And what is one style that was really trending while you were a kid and it's now coming back? In clothes. In clothes? Yeah. Like I said, I don't really remember clothing being any different. Like the clothing style seemed pretty much the same. It's more just verbal, verbal differences. Like if we talk the way we did back then, 100 years ago, when I was at South Aiken, y'all would be like, what? Or I haven't heard that since my parents said it, you know, 10 years ago when I was a baby. Like, and the same thing goes, like, had I not been a school teacher, I would have been like, what are these kids talking about? But I, you know, I figured it out. I figured out the slang. Welcome to South Aiken. Yep. So, like, by virtue of sagging, their clothes were already too big. Yeah, that is true. And the thing is, there was no vaping. Yeah, it was just straight up, yeah, smoking, not so much vaping. Wait, is it true that there was, like, I heard this in my eighth grade, but apparently before there was, like, a cigarette spot for people to smoke in high school? I think that's just a general thing across. If they had it, like, you would go to that specific spot and just smoke, and then you would go back to your class. Yeah, I mean, that was more like when my parents and my grandparents were in school, from my understanding. But, yeah, I mean, there were designated smoking areas. I mean, if you've seen, you know, like, Greece, it was similar to that, where, yeah, I mean, smoking used to be a big thing in high school. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Riebel, for having us. It was my utmost pleasure. There is nothing I'd rather be doing, fourth period planning. Mom, I did it wrong! Well, thank you so much, Mr. Riebel, for taking time off your planning period and having this interview with us. It is my utmost pleasure. There's nothing I would rather do, fourth period block, fourth block planning. That still is going to take years to get used to. Yeah, it is. We are sitting right now with Mr. Riebel, the science teacher here at South Aiken High School. It is a joy and an honor to be here today speaking to the brilliant young minds at South Aiken High School.