Got Milk?!: On-Farm Employment SAE Visit

For me there was no better way to finish up student teaching than to go on one more SAE visit. This time I was heading over to the family farm of Ms. Emily Kahler. Emily is absolutely one of my favorite students and one I can't wait to see what she accomplishes once she leaves Tri-Valley in just a few months. Emily is a senior in my Ag Science class and is finishing up her term as the Chapter President. She was one of the first students I met when I began my journey with Tri-Valley last spring so I think it’s fitting that she gets to be one of the ones I finish it with.

Emily, along with her older brother, is the third generation on their family’s dairy farm. Currently milking approximately 90 Holstein dairy cows, the farm is solely operated by her parents and older brother, with Emily helping when she’s not in school and every now and then Granma comes down to help out.

Emily’s main job on the farm is caring for the calves and young heifers, responsible for the afternoon shift of watering and feeding all the calves in hutches and the younger heifers that have been moved into the end of the free-stall barn. It’s clear that Emily enjoys working with the young calves, and it’s easy to see why looking at the row of cute black and white calves lining the entrance to the farm.

Emily’s true passion is in graphic design, but while we worked alongside her taking care of the calves and touring the farm, we talk about the possibilities of using her graphic design experience in the agriculture field after she graduates from college.

Once the calves were fed and we met up with her brother to learn about the nutritional aspect of the farm, we headed down to the parlor led by our unofficial tour guide, King the family dog. Normally her parents handle all the milking by themselves, taking about three hours twice a day, but when Emily’s there she jumps right in, so we got to see Emily working along side her parents while her mom caught Mrs. D and I up on the town gossip.

It was a great, relaxing way to finish out student teaching and it was nice to spend a beautiful (but slightly chilly) day outside, enjoying the smell of cows and hay. I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with Emily all semester long, watching her receive her Keystone Degree in January and then working with her on her record-books, Proficiency and Scholarship Applications. I cant wait to see what great things she does next.

DIY - CDE Resources

One of the assignments during student teaching was to develop a DIY project (Do It Yourself) that would aid to our development as teachers but also benefit our cooperating centers. To figure out what I should do for this project I decided to go back to the three-circle model. I believe that student teaching in general will help me improve upon the circle of classroom & laboratory instruction, and that my experiences working with students throughout the semester would help with SAE, so now that leaves the circle of FFA.

As a student I was very involved in FFA in my local chapter and took part in several state and national activities, but my time in FFA was very focused – I picked one or two things and I worked on them again and again each year to improve. One such example is in the Career Development Events and that is where I got my idea for my DIY. I decided to develop “CDE’s-In-A-Box,” resource kits to help train and prepare students to compete in several different Career Development Events.

When I was a student I only competed in the Livestock Evaluation CDE, and while I have helped judge and facilitate a few different CDE’s during my college career, they have mostly been the public speaking contests and not technical skills, so that is where I decided to focus. I planned to compile resources for at least three different CDE’s to help serve as a starting point for ag. teachers when beginning to train a team.

Based on the preferences of the students at Tri-Valley the CDE’s I compiled resources for were: Livestock Evaluation, Poultry Evaluation, Veterinary Skills, and Wildlife. These resources were compiled from a variety of different sources including Communities of Practice, various State FFA Associations, the National FFA Association, and several state universities and extension services. My students were also involved in the process, as they complied resources for the Poultry Evaluation CDE through a group project.

The original idea for the project was to create boxes and/or binders of the various resources; however, after discussing it with my cooperating teacher we decided that digital versions would be much more helpful and easier to distribute amongst students. So before I left to head back to campus I left her a binder full of the physical hard copies of the resources the students had found for Poultry Evaluation, in addition to a USB drive full of digital versions of all of the resources found for the various CDE’s, among other helpful documents. 

Hopefully, the resources are helpful for the students and Mrs. D and they will be used quickly as some of the students will be competing in several of those CDE’s at the regional contests at the end of the month with state convention in less than two months. At the end of each school year the FFA members also host and participate in an Ag Field Day, a daylong Ag Olympics event and sometimes one of the events is a portion of a mock CDE, possibly one of the ones they now have training resources on.

Getting the 'Big Desk": Administrator Interview

One of the most nerve-wracking parts of the job search for me is the interview. I have a pretty good idea of what kind of program I am looking forward but I still really nervous every time I have to prove to someone that I am the kind of ag. teacher they are looking for. To try and help with this fear, one of our assignments was to have a mock interview with one of our administrators.

For my interview I met with Mr. Hall, the principal at Tri-Valley Jr./Sr. High School and we had a mock interview mixed with a discussion about interviews and hiring in general. Using some of the standard interview questions for hiring at Tri-Valley along with interview questions I had brought along to prepare for an upcoming interview I had, Mr. Hall and I went back and forth with the questions. First, he would ask me a question and I’d answer it as if it was a real interview, but then we’d talk through my responses and what he thought was good and what could be reworded or elaborated on.

When we would talk about a question involving “how would you react to the situation of…” whether it was about parent interaction or classroom management Mr. Hall said that you always have to remember one thing – you have the Big Desk. He said that when answering questions related to those scenarios and or responding to those scenarios in reality, he said always remember that you as the teacher have the Big Desk and you know what you are doing. He said part of having the Big Desk is having the confidence in what you are doing, relating back to having confidence when interviewing.

Mr. Hall also took the time to share with me stories of his own interview experiences, both as the interviewer but also the interviewee. Based on his experiences he said the major thing to remember about interviews is that they should always be a two-way street. The interviewer should be determining if the interviewee is the best candidate for the position while the interviewee should be determining if the placement is the best position for themselves. He said this is where the importance of good questions lies as the right question can sometimes tell the interviewee a lot about what the interviewer is not telling you about the position/placement.

Overall, I had a great time talking with Mr. Hall. We discussed how I was enjoying my time at Tri-Valley and how much he has learned and is still learning about agricultural education. Working in his school has been a joy this semester and I only hope that wherever I decide to teach that I am lucky enough to have administrators who are at least half as supportive of their ag. programs as he is of Tri-Valley’s.