National FFA Week... a true ag teacher experience.

"You're finally getting the hang of this - you're starting to see what it's really like."
As I was standing dead on my feet after 5 straight days of craziness, and we talked about what time we should arrive the next morning (Saturday - we decided on 7 AM) to load the 26 kids up for a 3 hour drive to a conference, my cooperating teacher commended my survival and appreciation for the craziest week I've experienced yet - National FFA Week.
I was pretty pumped for this week for a while, wondering what it would look like from the eyes of an "adviser" of an active FFA chapter, but realized from her words on Monday morning ("it's gonna be a rough week") that it would be a bit more chaotic than what I expected... FFA activities every day (most of which were not fully planned due to a snow day the previous Friday), several meetings, a trip to Hoss's, and a weekend leadership conference in Harrisburg. And this is all on top of the full load of classes I was teaching last week (many of which just happened to involve quite a bit of prep). Needless to say, sleep was minimal, action was constant, blue and gold were starting to blur, and I was having the time of my life.
What is National FFA Week? Well, it is a week-long tradition that "began in 1947 when the National FFA Board of Directors designated the week of George Washington's birthday as National FFA Week in recognition of his legacy as an agriculturist and farmer. (FFA, 2014)" We recognize FFA as an outstanding organization that positively influences the lives of our agricultural youth through student-run activities, community events, and promotion of the program.
So this week was fun - mainly because I have a lot of energy when it comes to FFA and because I love seeing the students take charge. Some of the activities that the Grand Canyon FFA developed were:

• Daily 'spirit' day themes: Monday (flannel/boots), Tuesday (camo), Wed (tractor color t-shirt), Thur (Carhartt - one I was missing out on because I left mine at home), and, my FAVORITE - Friday (blue and gold day, goodie bags for official dress wearers :) ) 
• Lunch activities: bubble trouble (see photo), sunflower seed spitting, corn guessing, feed sack races, and ag trivia
• Daily ag trivia over the announcements 
• Teacher appreciation breakfast for all school teachers
• Daily teacher gifts (a food product with facts about that food product)
• Banners and flyers in the community
• A news announcement
• Meet your State Officer night at Hoss's (in Williamsport, an hour away)
• a chapter officer meeting 

Bubble Trouble - fetch a piece of gum from under a pile of whipped cream and blow a bubble... which is almost impossible due to the dairy disintegrating the gum

Part of Friday's goodie bag for wearing OD (official dress - FFA jacket and proper attire). I was SO pumped to see so much corduroy! And I was pretty excited to participate in blue/gold day with my gold skirt and blue button-up. 

It was pretty sweet to be an "adviser"... and it was crazy, constant motion. But it didn't end with Friday! We went to the ACES state FFA leadership conference in Harrisburg yesterday and returned today. 26 kids in tow, all super excited for being in hotel rooms and the dance (which was hilarious to witness from the other side), and we had quite a fun weekend. 

Students participated in workshops run by state FFA officers and other leaders then got to jam out at the ACES "Sweet 16 bash" dance. I am proud to say that I (and my cooperating teacher) successfully led our bashful students to the dance floor... and I may have done a bit of dancing myself, just to have a bit of fun (and demonstrate some line dances). But the drama that went on with other chapter boys asking our girls to dance and vice versa was quite hilarious to witness. It reminded me of my FFA dance days... the golden days. 

Anyways, after "lights out," I got to be a real ag teacher and prowl the hallways in observance of any rule breakers or loud rooms on "night watch." Nothing too exciting happened, except when I fixed the 2nd hotel toilet of the evening (assisted by my coop teacher, of course) in the room of some giggling girls. We returned to the north today, after a stop at Bass Pro Shops (a Grand Canyon FFA ACES tradition). 

I loved seeing the "Grand Canyon" jackets all over the place - they were my kids!

So what else happened this week? Well, TEACHING of course! While I spent the majority of my "teaching" blog talking about FFA, I am totally unashamed because FFA is part of my teaching experience! That's how cool we are in agricultural education. But anyways, for those wondering what we did in the classroom this week that successfully kept me up so late. 

Monday was catch up from Friday, when 3 of my classes were supposed to have quizzes. The freshman class got to make the rose flower arrangements that my cooperating teacher was going to make with them on Valentine's day. And my cooperating teacher also was the "guest speaker" of a lesson on goats and sheep for the AN SC 2 class. 

Tuesday AM brought us to school at 6:30 AM for the teacher breakfast, and I was trying to prepare for a lesson on feed labeling for pet foods, in addition to my first official lesson on PUBLIC SPEAKING for the FFA/Leadership class! I think I am having the most fun with these lessons, mainly because I love public speaking and because there is lots of flexibility in the class. I was so surprised on Tuesday when I sneakily made all 12 students stand and deliver a 30 second extemporaneous speech on why they love the FFA before asking them if they were afraid of public speaking. 90% said they were, then were appalled when I told them they just gave an extemp speech! It was perfect! Then, rather than complaining when I told them we would be doing public speaking, they seemed excited! It was so encouraging! We spent time brainstorming speech topics and discussing the steps in preparing a speech which we continued Thursday. Also on Thursday was my lesson on speech "stickiness" - AKA the ability to make speeches and ideas meaningful and memorable. Taken from the book, "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath, we discussed the acronym SUCCES (simple, unexpected, credible, concrete, emotions, story) as a core for a memorable speech. I surprised myself at the effectiveness of my improvised method of teaching the U of SUCCES when I took the book and slammed it on the table in front of a student. He was surprised, it was unexpected, and it regained their attention. It was priceless. So basically, I am super pumped for this continued unit on public speaking, even if they aren't so good at working outside of class. 

Wednesday brought a guest speaker - our local wildlife conservation officer from the Pennsylvania Game Commission, to speak to my Natural Resources class about his position and wildlife management. It was cool to engage the community in the classroom, especially since the officer's daughter was in my next period class! 

Mr. Rodney Mee, local WCO, speaking about his career

Thursday was a bit crazy. Mainly because I stayed up so late Wednesday to prepare for it - a friend came over and we baked up my animal science interest approach: screw up cookies :) We were discussing rations in animal feed, so I started the class by giving them a very disproportionally baked chocolate chip cookie (i.e. 1 cup of salt instead of sugar). Some facial reactions allowed me to segway into the point that the proportion (quality) of a specific animal feed is key to its success in animal nutrition! Then I gave them legitimately baked cookies to make up for it :) I was also preparing for an equine lesson on anatomy - the first lesson where I was truly able to engage the whole group of students (who I sometimes struggle with).
Another highlight of Thursday was preparing the agar for a Friday lab. I MADE AGAR! It was not only exciting because it was the first time I made it from scratch, but also because of the unit for which it is used - FOOD SAFETY! This is my CASE ag science 1 class, and they were doing a food safety lab where they swabbed samples of ground beef (1 cooked sample, 1 refrigerated sample, and 1 room temp sample). I really like food science, so was excited for this lab and unit.

Preparing petri dishes with my freshly made agar!

Students in my Ag Sc 1 class, conducting the ground beef lab... so cool.

So now that you've read all that, let's reflect. I was super thankful for this crazy week (even if I am still recovering from it) because it really showed me how insane yet fulfilling it can be to serve as an agriscience teacher/FFA adviser. I got my first "We love Miss Hoover" note on the whiteboard on Thursday, and beamed with pride when I saw a member put on his newly ordered jacket for the first time on Tuesday. I didn't sleep much and wanted to cry a few times, but loved it. It's been an awesome week to realize that, no matter how demanding a career can be, it really does pay off if you are 100% invested. 

I was told by my teacher that I was really blossoming in the classroom, and that my lessons were really improving to meet student needs. I know there are some areas to still improve (connecting content to real world, grades, homework, and LFS activities), but I am really feeling comfortable here and am super sad that I have to leave Wellsboro in just 2 weeks... but before I go too much deeper with my thoughts about it all, I will sign off and leave you to ponder a Bible verse that I thought I would struggle with during this time. I felt like I would be constantly looking forward and not enjoying this student teaching experience as much, but I find that I truly am content with where I am, even if I do have to leave in 2 weeks - I am going to fully devote myself to this opportunity right now and grow from every second of it. 

Philippians 4:11

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

I am content (and even more, overjoyed) to be here - be content with where you are too!!