SAE Visit #1

The first mustang that Alex received.
She was very interested in eating the
entire Science Night event.

This week I met up with Alex Eagles, a sophomore at Bald Eagle High School who currently has two active SAEs: a tractor restoration project and two mustangs which he has gentled. I took advantage of the Science Night event that occurred on Monday when Alex and his parents brought the tractor and one of the mustangs to the school. I had spoken to Alex on a few different occasions about his projects and had spoken with his father at the last Occupational Advisory Committee and was very impressed with these two projects of which Alex was very proud.

Alex's father told me that he had traded a horse for the 1959 International tractor years ago and had used it primarily to mow grass until he purchased a new tractor. At that point the tractor was left in the barn for a few years. It was in pretty rough shape when Alex decided to use it in his Ag Mech class and enter it into the Tractor Restoration Competition at this year's Farm Show in Harrisburg. 

Some "before" photos of the tractor on display at the Farm Show

I asked Alex how much he knew about tractors or mechanics in general prior to starting this program to which he responded, hardly any at all. But as Alex explained the process and transformation that the tractor went through I could tell that his knowledge surpassed my own. I asked him how he learned what he needed to know to get the tractor running and looking nice again and Alex responded matter-of-factly, "the manual and a lot of YouTube videos."

I could tell that he was proud of what he was able to accomplish with the tractor and even won $800 for the FFA Chapter at the farm show competition for having entered the tractor in the competition.

The finished tractor on display outside of Bald Eagle High School during Science Night caught the attention
of the many attendees of the event.

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 

Finishing up my third week as a student teacher brought some highs and lows. First, I need to clarify something. I have a B.S. degree in Production Horticulture and I have found that a lot of people don't know what horticulture is, and those who do associate it with floral design and landscaping. Now, this becomes a problem for me when I tell people that I studied horticulture because I don't particularly like cut flowers and I am highly critical of the North American obsession with lawns. So for those of you reading this, horticulture is more than floral design and landscaping. My passion is for fruit trees and vegetables, mushrooms and compost, and much more.

That being said, I have been struggling through a unit in the horticulture class that is on floriculture in which, yep you guessed it, I am teaching about floral design. It was difficult to get the students to be engaged when I don't have passion for the subject. After some critical feedback from my cooperating teacher, I designed a couple of lessons that really went well. The students were engaged, they were having a good time, and even I was having a good time. I believe that learning should be fun because learning is fun! And so that is something that I learned this week. Even if you are not passionate about a subject, find a way to make it fun and I believe there is almost always a way to make things fun.

Working with some silk flowers in the lab

How to encourage your students to do quality work

I can remember countless assignments that I was given in high school that I absolutely loathed. Part of the reason was that I just didn't want to do the work, but mostly it was because I didn't see the value in the assignment. They were just another thing that teachers wanted me to do so that they could get their kicks.

Now as a teacher, I don't want to put my students through that same ordeal, but I recognize that it is important to teach students things that sometimes they don't want to do. That is where I believe students should have a voice in some aspect of the project or assignment. I believe that when students are given the opportunity to decide what they can research and participate in a creative process that they will not only be more motivated, but they will do better quality work.

That being said, there will always be students who don't want to put in the time and effort to produce quality work. In that case, you have to push them to do good work. This past week I was given the task to assess research posters for the introduction to agriculture course. It was an interesting experience because I gave quite a few students failing grades. I think that at first the students expected to turn in terrible work and get a C maybe and then that is it. But when the see the 26% they suddenly see that they have to think and put in  some effort. I'll tell you though, they do work hard and they turn in significantly better work.

So, to encourage students to do quality work, give students a voice, don't give them stupid assignments, and push them.

Weekly Insights - Be nice to everyone

Weekly Insights

Be nice to everyone - coworkers, administration - beyond the I scratch your back you scratch mine and toward a sense of community

Good public relations is essential for community to support you as the agriculture teacher and the agriculture program in general. Without the community, the program cannot be successful.

There seems to be a common understanding that being an agriculture teacher necessarily means that you are absurdly busy at any given point during the year. We try to do so many things with involving the community, catering to the desires of administration, FFA events, Farm Show and fair events... the list goes on. I fear that there is so much pressure to do everything that we will fail them right. I am not really sure, but I can recognize the need for the agriculture teachers to delegate responsibility to others to ensure that they are not working alone and wearing themselves too thin.

Daily Summaries

Monday - Farm Show was a great learning experience see my Mid-winter Convention blog for more details

Tuesday - Early release due to weather. I observed all of the classes. All students are working on finishing their mid-term posters which are due on Friday or Wednesday.

Wednesday - School Canceled

Thursday - I facilitated the Ag Leadership class in preparing them for the Junior and Senior Prepared Public Speaking CDE. I think that it went really well as I helped them select a topic to speak on based on their experiences and interests. 

Friday - Mr. Biddle was at Farm Show so I was the Ag teacher for the day. The students finished up their posters and I taught a lesson on delivering a speech. The students are off to a good start. They have chosen their topics and are doing some research about their topic. Over the next couple weeks we will work on writing an effective speech and delivering it.

Upcoming Week

I will be taking over facilitating the Horticulture class and will co-teach with Mr. Biddle the Ag Leadership class. The Introduction to Agriculture classes will present their posters and have a quiz on the information each student shares about their poster (we will create the quiz and take 1-2 questions from each student). The Animal Science class will be finishing up their posters and presenting them this week as well. 

Monday - There is no school for students but is to be used as a day to grade midterms.

Tuesday 

• Horticulture - Finish Posters
• Ag Leadership - Farmshow reflection

Wednesday

• Horticulture - "Jigsaw" Activity with posters. Students will present and assess each others posters.
• Ag Leadership - Complete their manuscript outline. Lesson on speech structure.

Thursday

• Horticulture - Quiz on information from poster presentations. Select seeds from a seed catalog that will be used in the milk jug greenhouse project
• Ag Leadership -  Effective speech introductions. Complete draft of speech introductions.

Friday

• Horticulture - Introduction to the milk jug project and setup for the project
• Ag Leadership - SUCCES for effective speeches. Practice their speeches in from of each other.

Concerns/Questions

It is sort of weird being in someone else's classroom. They have their way of doing things and at least with Mr. Biddle it seems to be going very well. I have different a educational philosophy when it comes to some approaches, but recognize that I don't have experience teaching and so I want to gain as much insight from a veteran teacher as possible and then when I have my own classroom I can start to integrate some of the ideas that I would like to try out.