A Dynamic Week!

Mrs. Bier & I sporting our spring colors and love for agriculture education!

When I think of the word “dynamic” I think of things being LOUD and EXCITING and RISKY. 

Student Teaching Week # 7 AKA National FFA Week… has been Dynamic in terms of growth, activities, and relationships. 

Growth.  It is clear to me (and hopefully my cooperating teacher and students!) that I grew this week.  I grew in terms of preparedness, assertiveness, and relatability.  This week I believe that my lessons were better prepared than prior weeks and I hope to keep this trend constantly improving.  I was more assertive with my students in telling them that they had to stick with their given assignments.  I gave them my guidelines with a glimmer of hesitation but I ultimately stuck to my plan!  I also improved relatability by making better connections in class to what interests my students.  Additionally on a feedback sheet for me from my students, several students said that they like how I try to relate the content to them.  That is a very rewarding feeling!

Activities.  With all of the excitement of National FFA Week (YAY!), the week was booming with activities relating to leadership growth of students, fun, and even philanthropic events.  Some of the things we did were as follows: present gifts of appreciation to the school board at a meeting, conduct a game-night, ice-cream social, teacher appreciation breakfast, movie night and even a kiss-the-cow fundraiser contest.  This contest was quite the highlight and the talk of the school for a few days!  Ms. Paula, our epic cleaning specialist won the contest and she was beyond tickled!  The newspaper came to take photos and her picture was displayed during the announcements.  While all of this is stellar, the best part was the philanthropic approach.  The student’s at Shippensburg decided they wanted to raise money to send to an agriculture teacher who has an infant child that is facing intense medical procedures and hefty expenses.  This moment reminded me just how much the agriculture community is like a family.

Relationships.  As a student teacher I strive to do my best to remind my students that I am learning how to be a good teacher.  I try to build a positive relationship with them and that begins as me greeting all of my students every day at the door with a huge smile and saying “It is so nice to see you today!”  My student’s expect that and on my weekly evaluation from them one student said that a positive is me greeting them at the door.  I am also learning more about my student’s interests in terms of activities that they do and do not like in the classroom, my teaching style (which is constantly evolving), and their interests outside of school.  Building relationships with my students helps me to inspire them to exceed their potential and it gives me feedback on switches to use in the classroom to better keep my students engaged.

This DYNAMIC National FFA Week had the perfect ending for the Shippensburg chapter as they celebrated it at ACES.  ACES also reminded me why I am here as an FFA Advisor and it is because “I believe in the future of agriculture.”