Week 7: Its starting to get REAL!

How to Balance Everything?

Oh my lanta! What a week!! This week I added on two sections of Ag Mechanics II. Both portions of this class had all boys, so you could say that they constantly test me. On top of adding a new class it was FFA week, one of our biggest times for recruiting. We decided to have a spirit week with each day representing FFA. For instance Monday was camouflage, Tuesday was wear something representing FFA, Wednesday was sponsors of FFA, Thursday Blue and Gold Day, and Friday Flannel and Boots Day. Also on Friday some of the students went down to the middle school to put on a presentation for 8th graders since picking next years classes was coming up next week. Oh but let's not forget the after school events we had as well. I am really starting to see how much work it takes to be an Ag Teacher.
I still have my third period Ag Enviro class they are finishing up with tree identification and then we will be moving into Maple Syrup Production! I am excited because I think they will really enjoy this unit. They are being champs with all the trees I have had them identify. With this unit ending there are things I would definitely change. I do not think I would have them identify as many trees. We had almost forty different trees for them to identify. So with the review I did, I told them they only had to know a certain few so that way they didn't stress out over my mistake. However with this little bit of knowledge under my belt I realized that I am going to do the Maple Syrup Unit differently. I want to make it more hands on and interesting for the the students.
This week we added on two sections of Ag Mechanics II. This is a very tough class for me because the boys really enjoy testing me and not letting me get through my lesson. They think because they took Ag Mechanics I that they know everything, but when we were going through the safety lesson they do not understand why certain answers are that way. I explained to them that if they are not safe in the shop that they will get kicked out of the shop and have to do book work for the rest of the time that I am teaching them. I know that they really want to get in the shop and start working but I am not comfortable with them going down there yet. They also kept asking if I knew how to weld and if I knew what I was doing, so the one day during my prep I went to the shop and welded and brought up the weld so they could see I know what I am doing. They definitely have changed their attitudes a little bit. I definitely feel like now we can get somewhere so hopefully the next weeks to come they continue to give me that respect.
In conclusion to week I experience many different feelings of stress, panic, and then pure happiness. I have good students and with a little more structure and fun lessons these kiddos will do great! Also I feel that I need to put the hammer down with more organized time management strategies so that I can get more assignments and lessons accomplished. I am as always looking forward to next week!