The busy life of an Ag teacher

 

Busy week, but a good week. I got to start a unit that I am really excited about and I think that the students are pretty excited about as well: orchard management. I really love trees and especially fruit trees. It requires a lot of time and patience to grow fruit trees but it is highly rewarding to see a tree grow and produce flowers and fruit. This week we did a lab on grafting which I was a little unsure about as it is somewhat dangerous and requires a lot of skill to do it right. Overall, I thought it was a success. I learned some things that I will do differently the next time for sure but I had a good time and the students did as well.

 

With the introduction to agriculture courses we made some soap, which I had never done before but the students had done before. I was impressed with their ability to work efficiently and collaborate with one another. This is one of the many projects that the student work on to raise money for the chapter.



 


Actually, as I am writing this I am sitting in a hotel lobby as we are attending an agricultural conference with a group of students. I admit that I was not really looking forward to spending my weekend chaperoning students and going to workshops, but honestly, so far, it has been a great experience. It is really good to see students have fun and form friendships with each other.






This upcoming week I am excited to start the "Great Grow Along" unit which will teach students how to use the scientific method to conduct biomedical research using rats. It is a curriculum that was written by my current cooperating teacher and it seems awesome.

This week was a roller coaster. Maybe not a crazy, scream your head off, roller coaster, but the type of roller coaster that little kids should definitely not ride.

The beginning of the week was pretty rough. I felt like I was starting to get the hang of this whole teaching thing until I had my first visit from my university supervisor and my ego was crushed. I ended up spending about 14 hours at the school that day and as I was driving home I contemplated hard about whether or not this was the right path for me.

I have been through difficult times before and I have come to realize that the first few weeks of any new experience are tough. So I have that in mind, but at the same time it is really hard not to get discouraged or think to yourself, maybe this isn't for me, maybe this was all a big mistake. I know that I am not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but I am not going to give up.

The next day, we brought our students to another high school where they were to compete against other schools in the county in events through the FFA. You already know that I have been coaching my horticulture students for the floriculture competition. I really just wanted them to have a good time and have fun in the competition, but one of my students actually won the competition. It was pretty great to see how proud and somewhat surprised she was. I felt really good to because I was able to be a part of that experience as well.

So, I guess that is life. You win some and you lose some. The important thing is to just keep doing what you have to do to make your vision a reality.

2017 Bald Eagle Floriculture Team

The Power of Small and Simple Things

This week was a bit crazy. I am starting into the transition of teaching all of the classes and at this point I am teaching all but one period. It is challenging to say the least. To prepare an engaging lesson requires a lot of time and energy and to prepare seven engaging lessons is insanity. I am coaching two teams who will compete in Career/Leadership Development Events (C/LDE) and in one, the Prepared Public Speaking LDE, I had the students watch a short TED talk by one of the directors of the TED events. In that video he spoke of the power of ideas. I realize that ideas can have the potential to both help and hurt people in a myriad of different ways. Reflecting on this week I am coming to understand the potential influence that I can have on the students that will enter my classroom and to an extent it is very daunting but at the same time it is empowering.

As you may know, I have been teaching a floriculture unit that I have struggled with. I want to share an experience from this past week. My cooperating teacher was kind enough to allow my to buy some real flowers for the students to practice making arrangements and they loved it. Even the guys who are all like, "Flowers are dumb," were taking pictures of what they had created. It was interesting to see all of the different designs that they came up with. They then had the opportunity to share those arrangement with a teacher or paraprofessional of their choice. They came back with some great stories of how the person that they had chosen to gift the flowers to had cried with happiness, or had expressed how much it meant to them. It was something that I hadn't expected and it made me realize the power of small and simple things.

Getting their hands on some fresh cut flowers

Mrs. Holly Yearick who works in the main office has extensive
experience as a florist and came to class to evaluate the students'
arrangements