Maybe I am making a difference

Friends, we are have way there! Half way to the end of my college career, half way to becoming a high school agriculture teacher within my very own high school (hopefully). But that also means I am half way through my internship at Kennard-Dale High School. My love for my students and my career grow more with each struggle of each day.

This week was a very very busy week at Kennard-Dale. This week being National FFA week offered a lot of extra agriculture floating around the school. Throughout the week we had many events and activities going on to spread the word of our great love for agriculture. Each day of the week offered a special spirit day, which allowed a lot of students and faculty to participate in creative spirit days promoting agriculture. We also decorated an entire hallway, illustrating the timeline of FFA and important agriculture events. In addition, our students had a trivia wheel during each lunch period, spreading the word and knowledge of agriculture throughout our school. And last but not least, we asked each of our homeroom's within our school to decorate their doors with an agriculture theme. The door that won the decorating contest received donuts this morning for breakfast. What a great way to spread the word of agriculture.

My highlight of this crazy week, was taking 19 of our students to Winter Ag Skills Day at Bermudian Springs High School in Adams County on Thursday afternoon. I was very excited to attend this event because I had never attended any local CDE's in my agriculture career. This was also a very exciting afternoon because I had the opportunity to help Ms. Smith conduct the milk quality and products CDE. I enjoyed this role working with Ms. Smith and being the advisor and leader of our CDE. And lastly I felt confident in my abilities to help conduct this CDE because I just finished my dairy science unit where we spent a few days discussing dairy products and specifically preparing for the milk quality and products CDE.

However, the highlight of my week was seeing a few of our students from my animal care and management course in our milk quality and products CDE. The exciting aspect of seeing my students was knowing they had just learned this content material and I felt confident in their abilities to conduct this CDE. After the event was over, I was eager to see how my students felt about their performance in the CDE and I can happily say that my students felt confident! I was happy to hear this.

The most exciting and encouraging news came to me today, as Ms. Smith and I found out who the winners were of our event. The individual who came in first place in the milk quality and products CDE was one of Ms. Smith and I's student in animal care and management. We were so proud of her!! When she came to class today, we greeted her with joyful congratulations and a candy bar for all of her success on Thursday night!

Seeing Morgan's name at the top of the list, in first place for the milk quality and products CDE made me feel accomplished for the first time in my internship. I felt as though I actually made an impact and my students learned something from me, that they were able to apply to their continued education in agriculture. This feeling of accomplishment came at a perfect time this week, and gave me the encouragement I needed to continue to do my best for each of my students.

I look forward to my next few weeks with our kids at Kennard-Dale and all the many more accomplishments I hope to feel as my students teach me to become a great agriculture teacher.

Ms. Timmons