1: Overwhelming to Start

If you read my blog earlier this week then you know that I spent my first day of student teaching at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. It was a great day!

Thinking about the rest of my first week, I made some interesting observations.

1) After seeing kids in class every day, you can begin to notice when something is "off."
So far I've been able to hear my cooperating teacher's observations of the students and how to tell when they might be having a bad day or something of the sort. I look forward to being able to recognize the changes in my students as time moves forward.

2) Planning is great but you will always stray a bit from your lesson plan. 
Repetition can help with this but in a lesson there will always be a few things that you forget to do or tell your students. This happened to me on Friday afternoon as I taught my first class. It was okay, no one died, and I just corrected by giving them the info a bit later in the lesson when I happened to remember it.

3) There is time to improve! 
No reason to fret because although I feel great that week one I know that there are fourteen more to go and that I can keep improving! Stay tuned to find out what I learn next week.

What will I see when visiting a SAE?

What is an SAE?
SAE is an acronym that stands for Supervised Agricultural Experience and is a key component of the three circle model. This is a program that agriscience students design enabling them to gain hands-on experience and real-world skills in an agricultural area of their choice. The skills learned and practiced in a student's SAE build upon skills that they are taught in the classroom. 

On June 28th I went on my first Supervised Agricultural Experience visits! I learned many tidbits about the community where I will be student teaching and met some students in the agriscience program.


Stephanie

Here Stephanie tells us about her heifer barn and the
heifers that are housed there.

Our first visit was at 11 am with Stephanie who has just graduated from Manheim Central. Stephane has an on farm dairy placement SAE as well as a paid placement at Hendricks' Flowers in Lititz, PA. Her placement at Hendricks' Flowers was a co-op she completed her senior year. During this visit our main focus was her farm to see where all of the dairy activity happens. She is currently milking 88 cows with her parents and takes very good care of all cows and calves on the premise. Mrs. Seibert asked how everything was with the operation and if there was anything new or exciting happening that Stephanie wanted to share. It was clear to see her passion and her go-getter attitude as we said goodbye and headed one direction to our next stop while she headed to work at the floral shop. 

Overhead view of Hendricks' Flowers.
https://www.hendricksflowershop.com/img/aerial-shot2.jpg

Megan

Megan showing off the white orchid
leis that she designed!

At 12pm our second stop was to visit Megan at the location of her paid placement SAE. She has the opportunity to complete a co-op with Floral Designs of Mount Joy because she will be a senior during the 2017-2018 school year. With the permission of her parents, boss, and agriscience teacher she can leave school at 10:45am and travel to work! This is a great experience that will allow her to gain knowledge and practice in the floral industry along with real time work skills. After explaining all of the paperwork that would need to be completed so that the co-op could get underway, Megan showed us some leis that she made by stringing white orchids together with floral wire. She's excited to learn and grow at Floral Designs of Mount Joy!  

Floral Designs of Mount Joy is located on Main Street. Soon they will be
moving to their new location on the other side of town. 

Jeremiah
 

Jeremiah petting his steer while explaining his feed schedule. 

Our third and final visit of the day was at 12:45pm to pick Jeremiah up from his house and take him a mile down the road to where his animals are located. This young man is a sophomore with a diversified livestock SAE and it was clear to see the diversity when stepping into the barn. He was proud to show us his lambs, hogs, sheep, goats, dairy heifers, dairy beef, and steer. He shared where his animals were purchased from and even some fun stories about their personalities. Mrs. Seibert asked if he was looking to make any changes soon and he mentioned some alterations that he wanted to make to the floor of his pig pen. I was glad to see how happy he was telling us all about his show stock and I hope that he keeps improving so that he can have a chance at winning the State Proficiency Award in Diversified Livestock!

The goats at Jeremiah's. They love to play with the
wooden wheel in their pen. 

This was a wonderful day. All three visits proved that young people are out here doing great things and learning each and every day. I can see the real life application that supervised agricultural experiences provide to students especially when these kids give 100%. I hope to be involved with all of these driven students in the year to come!