Week 9: Community Relations

This has been a hectic week to say the least. This was also a week that highlighted community relation and how it supports an agriculture program.

This week we were dissecting in my Ag Science II-IV classes so my week started with a trip to Bixler's meats, the local butcher, to pick up some reproductive and digestive tracts. Even though we were learning about poultry in this class, the butcher didn't handle any birds and I wasn't able to have any of my students bring in any birds (live or dead) due to biosecurity reasons, so instead I was able to get tracts from pigs. I picked up both types of tracts this week but we were only focusing on the digestive tracts this week and I actually think that using the pig tracts instead of birds' actually provided a greater learning opportunity.

My students seemed to enjoy the chance to get their hands dirty cutting apart the dissection tract and while some of them were a little grossed out, most seemed to really enjoy it. For me it gave the opportunity to compare and contrast digestive systems across species with the tracts, reviewing some of the material they had learned in past agriculture classes.



This week was also my first of a few FFA banquets I would be attending this spring. In this area, there are several other FFA chapters within an hour's drive of Tri-Valley so each chapter invites their neighboring chapters to send representatives to their banquets and some other social functions. This week was the Upper Dauphin FFA Banquet and I'll admit that at first I thought it was strange to attend another chapter's banquet. This was not something we ever did at home. Then while attending Upper Dauphin I realized how great of an opportunity this was - through the simple gesture of inviting a few extra guests, the chapters were ensuring a friendly community bond was built amongst the chapters.

I had a great time at the Upper Dauphin FFA Banquet. It was a great chance to see how another chapter performed their banquet and allowed Mrs. D and I the chance to compare ideas and think of ways to improve our own Tri-Valley Banquet coming up in May. One of the highlights we both really enjoyed at Upper Dauphin's was that it was the 60th anniversary of the original FFA chapters in that area, and so one of their officers gave a beautiful presentation on the chapter's history. While not everyone would be able to give a presentation like theirs, I do believe that celebrating your chapter's history is another great way to continue to build the community relations within your own local chapter.

Overall, this has been a great week and a great example of the value of community relations to a chapter's success.

Week 4: The week I was reminded that I have great friends...

This week has been the hardest so far...

While I have heard stories over the past few weeks of how some of my fellow student teachers have run into some obstacles, I have been pretty lucky so far. No real problems, both of my two classes behave well and follow the expectations I put in front of them, and other than trying to work around a constant changing schedule due to snow, I haven't had a bad week....

...Until this week, week 4.

To start off what could best be summed up as a "trying" week, my wonderful car Debi is no longer with me thanks to an encounter with black ice on the mountain last weekend.

Then I had a snow day Monday and a two-hour delay on Tuesday, which while it was very helpful after my adventures on Sunday, it also meant that Tuesday felt rushed all day as Ms. D. and I tried to catch up with one another and prepare for the next few weeks after an unexpected four-day weekend.
I did get to finally have my Vet Science class again and was able to complete my activity with them that I was excited for last week. While the activity did not go 100% as smoothly as I wanted it to, some of my students seemed really into it, and everyone had input on what the laundry detergent-covered, glowing, squeaky basketball dog toy had to do with vet science class. While some students were grossed out by the sticky dog toy, others gladly passed it around to their friends and enjoyed watching our hands glow under the black-light once I showed them how germs and diseases can be passed around on something as simple as a dog toy. Overall, I think it was a good interest approach activity to tie together the topic of the day, zoonotic diseases, with the overall unit of safety and sanitation.

Wednesday I picked up my 3rd class, which meant both 3rd and 5th period. I have already decided that this class is going to be my hardest points of the day. This is my Ag Science II-IV class, so 10th, 11th and 12th graders together and while we will be spending the majority of the rest of my time here learning about the poultry industry (our valley has a significant amount of poultry production, with several of my students completing SAE's in poultry-related employment), I wanted to start out the unit looking at the larger picture of global hunger and how animal agriculture can play a part.

While my new students were rowdy, they stayed mostly on topic, discussing why we have a global hunger issue and how it's not only the quantity and quality of food produced, but also the distribution of these foods and resources that play a part. And they were pretty excited about getting to eat cookies (except my wrestlers, I mistakenly brought food in on a weight cutting day).

While Wednesday was a hard day, picking up the new class, Thursday was the "trial by fire." Ms. D. and I had been preparing for the end of the week, as Friday we would both be at the state FFA record-book contest and our students would be with a substitute teacher, but Thursday Ms. D. would also be out and I would be teaching all the classes that day with the help of the substitute. To say that that day was tough would be an understatement, as some of my students took full advantage of only having me and attempting to run over me in the classroom (with their words, not equipment).

Thursday was a struggle and while it has definitely pointed out where I may run into classroom management problems and showed me where I need to improve when planning my lessons, this week has taught me some other great lessons:

1) I am student teaching at a great school with a wonderful and supportive staff and administration. Throughout my time here and this week especially, my fellow teachers have checked in with me and made sure I am surviving and enjoying my time in the valley.

2) While some of my students drive me up the wall almost every time I interact with them, I have others that I love. Many of my students, especially my girls and some of my 11th and 12th grade boys are wonderful students and are going to go onto great things after high school graduation and I look forward to learning more from them throughout the rest of my time here.

3) "Don't take it personal..." This is a piece of advice many of my fellow Tri Valley teachers and other teacher friends have told me throughout the past month, and while this is probably some of the hardest advice to follow I've received, I am trying to follow it.

4) I have an amazing support network of friends. Between my amazing cohort and the rest of my Penn State Teach Ag family, and the wonderful ag. teachers I call friends up and down the East Coast, I have had many people who were there for me this past week, with words of encouragement, laughter, tips/advice, and overall listening ears to allow me to laugh, cry, scream, praise and overall vent about my time here at Tri Valley so far. And while this week has been hard, I assure everyone that no, I have not been scared off, and I look forward to the next 11 weeks only going up from here (as long as it's not up a mountain...)