The Final Week... in PA at least!

While there was minimal sleep, heightened stress, and unexpected issues, this week was the best week of my entire Wellsboro experience.

I actually don't know where to begin... so I guess I will start from last weekend. Sunday was a wonderful day, as I got to spend the afternoon with new family friends - they have some gorgeous children and a beautiful home, and we had a wonderful time watching Beauty and the Beast and eating brownie sundaes :) I know I should have been preparing for my final week, and that I stayed up entirely too late for several nights as a result of it, but it was probably one of my favorite experiences outside of school so far. It truly brings home the phrase "you only live once." And I am constantly reminded that we don't earn value in life by the things we do and the lessons we plan, but by the relationships we build and the people we impact. But I'll come back to that thought later...

So, here's the low down. I am going to summarize the days of this past week and include photos for each (if I have them) so you can get a  feel of the craziness that occurred. It was epic.

Monday fun day, the first day of craziness.

My second supervisor visit occurred - but only for half the day. Nonetheless, it was good to have my supervisor see me in my last week of teaching and give some more feedback. I definitely still have room to improve, but was proud of his remarks of my growth so far.

He was willing to take over Parli Pro practice during tutorial for the afternoon... so I let him have the kids! It was quite a surprise for them when they were forced to participate in a mock meeting: even the ones who were not really interested in Parliamentary Procedure! The Dr. Foster level of energy was contagious and a few became more interested in the activity... so maybe we will have a full Parli Pro team after all :)

After school, I had to kick Dr. Foster out quickly, as I needed to run 40 minutes up the road to pick up 2 pig digestive systems for a Tuesday dissection... I got to know the local butcher and was able to make it back to Wellsboro for the Spring Wellsboro Agriscience Advisory Committee meeting. While a smaller committee, they discussed some good things and areas of improvement for the program and its curriculum (to reflect career fields).

Dr. Daniel Foster, everyone. The "Special Guest" Parli Pro Expert. 

Tuesday - a "down" day

Tuesday wasn't really a down day, I just mean that there wasn't much outside of class to prepare for or participate in. However, classes themselves were interesting - I had 2 pig digestive systems for both sections of my Animal Science 1/2 class. While there were a few squeamish students who did not engage (and received alternative work), the vast majority of students were either cutting into/identifying or recording observations of the true (fresh) monogastric system. 

Tuesday afternoon included a CASE lesson on plant parts - the students identified what parts of a plant identify with each veggie of a salad. I'll help you out if you're confused... lettuce = leaf of the plant, carrot = root of the plant, celery = stalk of the plant, broccoli = flower of the plant. It was cool, even if only a few students actually ate the healthy educational resources at the end. 

And, for the final day, we trekked to the horse barn for Animal Science 3/4. This time to apply Monday's concepts about horse feed and teeth. The girls cleaned the feet of a pony and observed her old lady teeth.

Pigs have a monogastric system similar to humans. Note: this photo contains graphic content... if you are already looking at it and are grossed out, I guess I apologize. But as I said to many students, suck it up, it's just organs. They're inside you too.

I'm the one in the blue jacket. This little Pony, Star, was pretty cooperative for us!

Wednesday. And the real world begins.

It had been planned for several weeks that my cooperating teacher would be taking some students on a field trip on Wednesday. There was a community event about an hour away called an "Ag Forum" and, although it was a lot of adult-like discussion, they invited a few blue jackets from surrounding FFA chapters to attend. So my teacher took 4 students to the all-day event, and I had a sub to give me moral support as I taught a full day of lessons. I even got the keys to the ag department! It was a good experience to be "responsible" but not nearly as much of an experience as Thursday... stay tuned.

In Animal Science 1/2, we continued talking about ruminant digestion and I realized that my lesson on ruminants was a bit too long/complex for these students... regardless, I moved on in my digestion unit. Natural Resources finished up a simulation game about aquatics systems and I brought in some special guests for a discussion of equine sports in Animal Science 3/4. I had fellow student teacher, Emily Urban, record herself talking about her specialty - Olympic Eventing! And I showed off a few of my other friends' skills as I talked about endurance riding and some other English riding styles.

After school, preparation began for Thursday's special event: 8th grade recruitment day! Again, I will talk more about that later.

I was told last week sometime that I should save the date for Wednesday, 6 PM... It was to be a surprise. I was with my cooperating teacher after school, preparing for Thursday, when some of my students came back into the classroom. I was then driven, with these few students, to a local burger/wing restaurant and was met by the FFA Officer team!!! It was a wonderful dinner and a lot of fun to just spend some time with them. They are really a great group of kids and I will miss them dearly... I almost cried, but held it off.. at least until later in the week.

Thursday - the day of all days. The true Ag Teacher Preparation day.

8th grade recruitment in past years took place at the middle school - the CTC programs would travel down and take a few images/objects to represent their programs (drafting, wood shop, mechanics, construction, ag science, culinary) and hope to lure in some 8th graders to register for their courses the following year.
This year, however, was different. The 8th graders (all 120 of them) were to come to the high school for the afternoon - and cycle through the 6 CTC programs in 30 minute rotations. That's 3 hours of 8th graders, folks. With just 2 minute breaks between groups. It was expected to be a hectic day. But my cooperating teacher had it together - we were going to really lure the 8th graders in with the following activities:

• bringing the 8th graders into the classroom to watch the recruitment video that my peers and I made in the fall
• a student preparing a floral arrangement in less than 10 minutes, based on skills he learned in class and perfected at a local floral shop placement, to represent the plant science courses
• another student brought 2 heritage breed month-old lambs to show off the animal science aspect of the program
• our FFA chapter president was to talk about FFA
• they would get to "make their own ice cream" by shaking up the ice/salt mixture to freeze the pre-made cream mixture (food science at its finest)

Thursday was also the day that a fundraiser was to be delivered: 50 flats of fresh strawberries from Florida.
The plan was to have my cooperating teacher facilitating the recruitment activities and myself still teaching in the classroom, as we still had normal class during the recruitment time.

That was the plan...

Then I got the call on Thursday morning. Thursday was the first day in 6 years that my cooperating teacher took a sick day. It was pretty bad.

So I kicked into save-the-day mode and met with her husband at the school to get the keys, some instructions, and a new plan for the day. I kind of made sub plans for the substitute who came in (and had no idea what was going on), but was able to have the classes work semi-productively while flipping between the lab and classroom during the recruitment day.

While I was trying to get stuff together before the noon arrival of the 8th graders, the strawberries arrived and we had to get all 50 flats from one end of the school to the other (and upstairs to our room).

3 hours, 128 middle schoolers, 3 gallons of ice cream mix, 6 floral arrangements, and 2 lambs later, I breathed a sigh of relief. Recruitment day was a success. Although I felt weird introducing myself as the student teacher on my second to last day, I knew that it wasn't me that the 8th graders would remember. It wasn't me that brought the day together. It wasn't me that made it all happen...

It was my students.

From the moment when I told my 3 helpers (and 6 group tour guides) that my cooperating was sick, they knew it was serious. As I asked and they volunteered, everyone stepped up and helped set up for the event. One student prepared the ice cream mix, some of my boys brought all the strawberries up without me even noticing (since I was teaching a class), another student showed up unexpectedly to advocate plant sciences, and our presenters did an awesome job at talking about the Agriscience program and FFA chapter. It was pretty incredible, considering my rock star cooperating teacher couldn't be there, and I was overwhelmingly proud of and thankful for the outstanding students that I've had the privilege to work with over the past 7 weeks.

My student completing his floral arrangement, which he would give as a prize to someone in each group who answered a question correctly about photosynthesis... WOHOO ag literacy!

My other student and her two adorable Tunis lambs: Shish and Kabob. They certainly got a lot of attention from the 8th graders. 

Thursday is a day I will never forget, and while I am really sorry about how sick my cooperating teacher was and upset that she missed recruitment day, I am thankful for her and for the program that I was able to be present and that her students did such an awesome job at pulling it together! 

Friday. Cry day. 

Then came the last day... 7 weeks, 65+ students, 6 classes and countless memories later, I knew I needed to say goodbye. So, in place of giving lessons from the units that we were in, I had a "value added" lesson on Costa Rica, its agriculture, culture, and ag education, planned for my classes. 

I started each class by speaking to them in Spanish for at least 1 minute... then, after some appalled facial expressions and comments about not understanding, I would switch back to English to talk a bit about my experience in CR and why I am returning. Given time in some classes, I also talked about some careers and majors that Penn State, College of Ag Sciences, has to offer. 

But then that moment came, in each class, when I had a heart to heart. I told them, in complete honesty, that they were outstanding students, and that I felt extremely blessed to have such a positive experience with them. I never really had any severe problems with any of my students (as student teachers are so often warned about) and sincerely got to know at least one thing about each one of them during my time here. 

Whether it was: playing games on a bus, eating dinner at Hoss's, taking photos of them in class, helping them with proficiency awards, answering questions about swine production, teasing them about poop (digestive systems), comforting them when they were hurt, baking them cookies (both real and fake), researching answers to questions, explaining a concept one-on-one, or simply smiling and saying good morning, I know that these students provided the perfect opportunity to be a real teacher. 

Teachers do more than just teach. 

While lessons and content are important, at the end of the day you truly realize that it isn't what you taught that made an impact on those students - it was how you saw, heard, spoke to, and treated them. Teaching, especially in agricultural education,  is about loving kids. I pray that God used me to truly teach during these past 7 weeks. 

I wasn't lying to them when I told them yesterday that they each made an impact on my life. I will never forget this experience and I hope I never forget each of their names, faces, and beautiful personalities. 

While I previously was unsure if I wanted to teach agriculture in a formal setting, I now know that I would LOVE to TEACH AG! 

Even more, I love everything about my student teaching experience so far: my new christian family, the school, the town, the challenges, the climate, and my cooperating teacher... but the thing that I found I loved (and love) the most was, of course, the students. 

I don't know if I will be applying for a teaching position right away, but I do believe I am further encouraged that I would fit within the occupation. 

I don't know when I will come back to Wellsboro, but the sense of home that I have there is overwhelming, and I know I must return... Maybe right after graduation to help get ready for State Convention! 

I don't know what the next stage in my student teaching semester will bring, but it certainly won't be the same as my time in Wellsboro. 

My flight leaves for Costa Rica tomorrow... while it may be warmer in Atenas than in Northern PA, I will never forget the blessed warmth that my time in Wellsboro brought me.