My week actually started bright and early Sunday morning as Mrs. D and I took a group of four great girls down to Harrisburg for the three-day State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC). During this conference the students attend leadership workshops focused on developing them as aware and active citizens and teaching them about the legislative process. The students are even split up into the House and Senate and go through mock reviewing of current bills relevant to them, including safety features of school buses, hunting regulations, and standardized testing. This provides the students the chance to learn about the process and see how and why it takes so long for certain regulations to go into effect, giving them a greater appreciation of the process.The students weren't the only ones in workshops developing themselves - teachers were too. The first day at the conference was spent reviewing and grading Proficiency Awards from across the state. As a student who never went through the process of actually completing a Proficiency myself, this was really helpful to se how the applications are put together and how teachers score them. It was also just really exciting to have a chance to "see" the variety of SAE projects across the state from livestock and crop production to agribusiness ventures to research projects.
The next round of professional development involved learning about how to advocate for yourself and your agricultural education program. The culminating piece of the conference is a breakfast meet-and-greet with our representatives at the capital building, so this workshop focused on the reasons advocating is important, the best ways to approach advocating, and how to create simple one-page documents that serve as physical value-added documentation of why someone should support you. Essentially a one-page, front and back handout that uses stats and pictures to show why your individual agricultural education program is awesome.
Once all the workshops were finished we got back together with our kids and enjoyed a wonderful day of community service. Everyone at the conference was split up at various locations to perform community service - we were located a nearby senior living center where we got to enjoy the wonderful weather while outside landscaping. My girls seemed to have a lot of fun and everyone was in high spirits all day. It was a great chance for me to get to interact with some of my younger students who I hadn't had the chance to interact with too much yet, while also allowing me to strengthen the bond with one of my older favorite students.
While I had a great time at SLLC there was the rest of the week to teach! Going back to school to teach the next few days was exhausting as both myself and my students hadn't yet recovered from our trip. The next few days went by without a hitch as I continues to teach a full load of classes. My students and I got to start our weekends a little earlier than normal as a freak snow storm caused us to have an early dismissal on Friday, and while no one wanted winter to return, everyone was very excited to start the weekend.
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