Remaining Flexible: Week 3 Student Teaching ATHENS Style

Here is a short... NOPE Scratch that... detailed...re-cap of my week up here in the Northern Tier!

Monday:
Students were still pretty fired up from our power-outage on Friday, and then we had a two hour lockdown in the morning! While students in general are easily distracted and find it hard to focus, I will say that Monday was an especially difficult day. Students were confused, tense, and concerned about the lockdown that we had earlier, and many of the remaining lessons started with a conversation about the importance of safety, and how Athens has their best interest in mind. At one point, as Mr. Steinfelt reviewed the lockdown procedure with the students, that we are all to remain in the corner of the room with the doors locked, I had a very vivid "This is REAL moment...". During that lockdown (which, I was technically teaching during) I was in charge of the 18 students in the classroom. If anything were to happen to them, I would be in charge of them... that was a very real moment. I was happy to take advantage of the extra time with this class, which is particularly quiet, and get to know more of their names. We remained flexible during the lockdown and I was able to gain a more vivid appreciation of the fact that I have 18 students, who are some peoples children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, best friends etc. That was a very important lesson for me!

Monday evening we had an Alumni Meeting, and I was able to meet some of the sweetest, hardest working people in our community who are all determined and passionate about helping the FFA and Agriculture Program. I was truly humbled by this meeting, and enjoyed getting to meet the variety of people. From alumni of the program to supportive parents, to individuals who never had ag ed, but see it's importance, the Athens Alumni is a dynamic and impressive group.

Athens FFA Alumni Meeting

Tuesday:
This became a day of bringing back the normal routine, trying to get students back on track! I was finally able to start teaching more about Plant Propagation for Horticulture and work more with students on their projects, etc. My FFA/SAE leadership class fell behind in the planning for National FFA week, so I was able to rearrange my schedule and help them through the process. Mr. Steinfelt and I also found out that our plants will be coming two weeks early for the Horticulture class! Let the unit and lesson shuffling begin : )

"Upper Greenhouse" at Athens.

Wednesday:
The Intro to Ag class was able to finish their unit via an exam (which was shuffled due to the chaotic Monday!) I was very excited, and eager to pick up these classes on Thursday. We also had a CDE team, two students working on scholarships, one taking a quiz, and another making up an exam during tutorial! I was certainly glad to be there to help Mr. Steinfelt juggle the mass amount of people, and remained flexible in helping the Dairy Judging team determine their next move! WOHOOO cows!

Thursday:
Today I was able to work with the Officer team during Tutorial, and I officially picked up the Introduction to Agriculture Classes! Very excited to be teaching these exuberant and excited 9th graders. After school, while Mr. Steinfelt and I had planned on reviewing some lesson plans, we ended up completing some necessary budgetary papers, and helping a student finish her National FFA Scholarship Application.... and I concluded there is simply NOT enough time in the day!

We made some final touches on a National FFA Scholarship Application after school!

Friday:
Friday consisted of an FFA meeting, preparations in the Greenhouse for plants coming next week, wrapping up some welding projects, and entering detailed descriptions into AET. I was really excited to get to stop and sit down with Mr. Steinfelt to discuss how the week went and talk about goals for this upcoming week. We were also able to finalize some items for the Strawberry sale which will be starting soon!

Students done with their welding projects helped the Horticulture
class reinforce some of the potting tables

LONG STORY SHORT:

We can make plans, but they will change, and that's ok! Part of being an agriculture educator is being flexible, rolling with the punches, and being resilient. I did not plan on a lockdown, some events within the community that would leave many teachers and students devastated and not on their top game, our plants coming in two weeks early, or having classes run behind... but that's ok! This is life!

I am really appreciative of my hectic, plan ruining week because it's about time that I realized how plans are JUST PLANS. They aren't written in pen. The "Planning Police" aren't going to reprimand me because a plan I had didn't work. Nope, plans are meant to be written in pencil. A few erasor marks, some arrows, some items crossed out and others added, and that's life.

So... I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of my plans are changed for student teaching!