Week 2: Student Teaching ATHENS Style

 

Wow! Hard to believe it is already the end of week two! The week started off with Monday off of school, so I will admit it was nice being able to sit down and plan a bit for the upcoming week! I had to change some of my units considerably, so this was very helpful.

 

Tuesday started off with a bang and Mr. Steinfelt and I were able to go to a meeting after school in Troy with other Agriculture Educators from Bradford County! I really enjoyed the ride to Troy with Mr. Steinfelt and heard more about the school district and about the area. Here is a piece or our view... beautiful isn't it!

Got to hear more about the Beautiful Bradford County on the way to a meeting this week! THANKS Mr. Steinfelt!

 

At the meeting, we heard from Pee Jay's fruit and discussed our upcoming strawberry sale. It was really nice to meet the three other Ag Teachers in Bradford County, and to just be able to sit and talk with them a bit. After our fruit meeting (and sampling some DELICIOUS oranges) we got to work with Carole Fay (our SAE specialist) on AET Record books. I have gotten more familiar with AET just in my short time at Athens, but it was incredible to see the best of the best record book-wise for Bradford County. We have very talented, hardworking students completing incredible SAEs from gardening and trapping to owning a lawn care business and milking cows. It honestly was such a great experience to hear from Mrs. Fay and look over the record books.

 



 

I learned SO much about record books and AET from the dedicated and incredibly
 talented Ag Teachers in Bradford County and Mrs. Fay, our SAE specialist.



On Wednesday I was able to pick up the SAE / FFA Leadership class, and have enjoyed working with these students. We are just starting the Public Speaking unit and are gearing up for our county competition on March 22nd... Literally two months away!... and the count-down begins...

 

I also enjoyed visiting a science classroom at Athens to see how Mrs. Welch operated her classroom. We had some truly valuable conversations and I am so happy that I can go to her with questions or for advice etc. The teachers at Athens are incredibly open and willing to help!



Students participating in the chemical reaction lab in Mrs. Welch's Chemistry class!

 



On Friday I picked up the Horticulture class (we were just running a tad behind) and I am very excited to be teaching the plant propagation unit! Next week I will be picking up the two sections of Introduction to Agriculture and am looking forward to working with the freshmen!

 

We also had an interesting power outage at school... but that couldn't stop us from completing out AET records! #Laptops #Thankful #Flexibility

My desk at school is finally starting to feel... well... more like my desk!
Can we say BINDERS for DAYS! And the sad thing is... I still have more binders at home!



 

REFLECTION FOR THE WEEK!

 

What a fantastic week! I am feeling very blessed to have been paired with such a patient and hardworking individual. Mr. Steinfelt continues to amaze me with his diligence, his patience, and how much he cares about his students. I was very humbly reminded of the importance to seek for new opportunities as we both got an email for the possibility to get vouchers for the OSHA CareerSafe Training. I read the email and thought to myself, wow what a neat opportunity. Mr. Steinfelt saw it and said, I want this for the Ag Mech II Class!

 

Mr. Steinfelt, along with other teachers at Athens, have been consistently reminding me through their ACTIONS that we are advocates for our students. It is our job to not only teach them, but to also push them, to care for them, to ask questions, to offer advice, to listen! I am amazed by how short of a time I have been at this school and how many conversations that I have had with students. About future career decisions, about problems at home, about how to pay for an FFA jacket. As teachers we have the opportunity to truly impact students.

 

 I am looking forward to even more lessons that I will be learning from this experience, and I don't mean the lessons about facilitating a welding unit or teaching hydroponics. I mean the lessons that separate teachers from those who teach and those who INSPIRE!

 

Best

Sarabeth