Rea's Road: Tales of a Pre-Service Agricultural Educator: Week 9: So Much is Happening!

Week 9: So Much to Do in Such Little Time

Talk about a speedy week with loads of events, practices, new units and class on top of the work we have to do. What seemed like a calm week in my planner was the exact opposite of that. I am getting ready for the following week to add on another two sections of Ag Mechanics I. I will be teaching them Small Gas Engines and the way we have it set up is that the students bring in a small engine (lawnmower-push, rototiller) from home and then the "tune" it up. Also in my Ag Environmental class we are going to wrap up maple syrup and go right into Vegetables and Cooperatives. Also this week was our county public speaking contest, which means we had to revise, review, and get the speeches altogether. Sometimes I wonder how Ag teachers do it, and then I realize this is what I love about our profession, the way that it is always changing.
Even with a busy schedule we as Ag teacher still have to keep it together. I have found that I have issues sometimes with remembering what I had said to certain students about assignments. So I have definitely utilized the writing everything down technique. This has helped me out a ton, but still if I misplace my notebook then we are in big trouble. This week seemed to fly by, especially in my Ag Environmental Awareness class. Teaching two units can be a little tricky at times but it definitely is helping the kiddos get into a routine. However I will be ending the maple unit at the end of this week, due to SLLC being the following week and I would rather the students not get confused with the sub being there. However I am still trying to find a way to get these students really involved in the vegetable unit. They are really getting confused on cooperatives, so hopefully within the next few weeks they can really grasp this concept and continue to move forward.
Animal Science is going well, however how do you motivate the unmotivated. I feel as though I have tried everything and they just continue to give me the stare and refuse to participate. I guess this is why reflection is key when it comes to fixing these issues. Hopefully once we get out of feed and nutrition I will start seeing a turn around in the digestion section of this unit.
Ag Mechanics II still isn't in the shop and they are being difficult on getting through the material because they want to be down there. However I decided to try a different approach to them by hearing what they wanted and combining what I wanted them to get from the lesson. I decided to steal an idea from Dr. Ewing when I had shop class. I had my kiddos make a poster about the oxy-acetylene tank and label all of the parts. Once they finished with the poster they had to come up and present how to set up and tear down process of the oxy-acetylene tank. I think I really hit the creative bone in some kids and tested it in other kids. Being an all boy class I constantly heard the excuse of I can't draw and what have you, but I would like to say they actually did it all. The second part of this was to have the students go down and set up and shut off the oxy-acetylene tank. This was to show me that they could do it without a problem and safely. I had a grading rubric that graded them from proper PPE to the shut down process. It was interesting to see that my kiddos didn't know it all and the allowed me to help them. My students like to think they know everything until they are put to the test.
Overall it was a good week that ended in some of our students placing in the county public speaking contest to Mr. Frederick coming down for a second visit. Even though it seemed jam packed I had a great week and it definitely is helping me to learn and improve on time management skills. Even though my time is getting shorter and shorter I still have more to come.