Student Teaching Day 1: My first trip to Farm Show and Mid-Winter Convention!

And just like that, my first day of student teaching is in the books! We spend the day at the Farm Show and the FFA Mid-Winter Convention. Not only was this my first day of student teaching, but today was also my first trip to Farm Show and Mid-Winter Convention! Since I wasn't in FFA in high school and I lived a couple hours away, I just never made the trip down to Farm Show... until now. This year's Farm Show theme was "Diversity in Agriculture" and I thought it was perfect theme for PA agriculture. The day was full of new experiences and lessons learned.

I got to watch three PM students show their pigs!

Student safety is number one.

I know this one seems obvious, but yesterday I got to experience this in the context of the possibility of having an early dismissal on the day you're supposed to be going on a field trip. It was neat to see the communication going on between administration and teachers while discussing their plan in case of an early dismissal. This also shows how important it is for teachers to have a working relationship with their administrators.

The FFA Jacket. 

Students getting ready to wear their FFA Jackets for the first time.

It was awesome to see all of the first year ag students put on their blue corduroy FFA jackets for the first time. You could see the anticipation in their eyes, their eagerness to put them on, and their sense of pride as they zipped up that jacket for the first time. Those jackets will mean something different to each student as they continue on their FFA journey, but I hope they all use their time in FFA to grow and achieve great things. Just as Victoria Herr said (I'm paraphrasing), FFA doesn't make students leaders. It equips them with the skills and knowledge they need to be a leader. It was also great to see all of the Keystone Degree recipients go up on stage to receive their degree. Each of those students put in a lot of time and effort to get their Keystone degree, and it was neat to see how much students can achieve in just a few years. I look forward to becoming an Agricultural Educator so that I can work hard to help grow students into leaders like the ones we saw yesterday.

Have conversations with students.

I really enjoyed seeing some of the students I already knew from our trip to National FFA Convention as well as getting to know other students! I don't think it matters so much what the conversation is about, but more importantly that you listen to what they have to say and build that relationship. Plus, learning things about people helps you remember their name (which is good, because I'm typically bad with names). I'm really looking forward to having those students in class, and having conversations with the rest of my students!

Overall, it was a great day and I can't wait to see what the rest of the week holds!

Congrats to Penn Manor's Keystone Degree recipients!