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