Crazy Beautiful Life of an Agricutlural Teacher

Another week of joys and struggles in my favorite book of student teaching. This week was yet again another crazy week for myself, Ms. Smith and our students at Kennard-Dale. We had a lot of after school activities this week, and that lead to a lot of fun, excitement, and stress.

I love this craziness, in which I feel as though I function best when life is crazy and there are so many opportunities to look forward to. I also feel that during this time of craziness, is the best time for me to realize the things that matter most about teaching and the amazing support system I have in my cooperating teacher.

The beginning of this week was great! On Monday, Ms. Smith and I took seven students to a local butcher shop in our country for our meats evaluating CDE. This was the first time I have ever participated in this event, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Ms. Smith taught me how to determine the cut grades for the various cuts of meat as well as gain some valuable insight from the butcher himself. Our students also did well, which is always exciting.

As the week continued, Ms. Smith and I conducted an SAE visit with one of our students at her horse farm. (More to come on that fun adventure). We also had a benefit dinner for our FFA Chapter at a local restaurant. That was an enjoyable evening, just being able to spend time with our students and their families outside of the classroom. I have found the truth in building a rapport with my students to gain their respect and trust. I feel that as I spend more time with our students we are continuing to build great rapport and each day, I feel more at home at Kennard-Dale.

By mid-week my energy crashed and so did a lesson. This was a great turning point for me in my development as a teacher, however in the midst of the moment I did not find it to be beneficial at all. I was teaching a CASE lesson to our Intro to Natural Resource Management and Agriculture course when it all fell apart. I struggle with CASE curriculum. I find that it is hard for me to read a lesson plan, determine how I will teach it to our students, and then figure out how the whole lesson will come together.

On this particular day, our students were doing an ecosystem activity in which each student was an organism and they had to demonstrate how producers and consumers make the entire system function. I struggled with understanding the activity and I feel that I did not explain it very well to my students. The end result was an activity that did not offer the correct explanation of the energy cycle through an ecosystem. With my frustrations, I concluded class offering to my students that we will simply re-work the activity and re-do it tomorrow.

After class ended I confided in Ms. Smith and she offered the simplest advice that meant the most. Ms. Smith reminded me that not every lesson is going to be perfect, not every lesson is going to work. That is part of the process, that is part of the learning. As simple as this is, it was an important lesson for me to remember.

I feel that my struggle this week not only made me stronger as a teacher but it made me stronger by breaking me down. After my failed lesson I was able to put myself together finish the day and then the next day, our students, myself, and Ms. Smith re-worked our activity and everything fell together just fine.

The week continued to get better, as our Horticulture 2 students are preparing to plant seeds in our greenhouse. And we ended the week, receiving our strawberry fundraiser orders. Even with my setback this week, I am thankful for the journey and for all the knowledge that I am gaining through this amazing experience!

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart"- Colossians 3:23

~Ms. Timmons