Silver Linings... Last week of Student Teaching ATHENS Style

Hard to believe that this was my last week student teaching at Athens! WOW, the time has really flown by and as I sit and reflect on this experience, I am simply amazed! Amazed at all of the things that I have learned, the experiences I have had, the people who I have met, and the fact that I really am not ready to leave. Wow indeed.

 

Here is a recap of my not-so-traditional last week of student teaching.

 

Monday: SIX STUDENTS MAKE ATHENS FFA HISTORY BY ATTENDING REGIONALS PUBLIC SPEAKING EVENT

 

That's my headline for the day! This is the most students that Mr. Steinfelt has ever taken to the Regionals event! I am so incredibly proud of our students, and we have one senior who is moving on to the state competition!

This is our ATHENS Can-Do Attitude! Strutting our stuff on the way to Regionals! We got this!

 I was able to help out with the Safe Tractor Driving Competition. It was a nice experience to move to the next level seeing as I had helped with the county competition. I was also able to work with other teachers from the region.

Monday was a wonderful day for Safe Tractor Driving!

 What a great group of students to work with. I was so proud of these six students! Three freshmen blew me away with their maturity and hardwork. The sophomore, a somewhat shy student really went out of his comfort zone to compete. And our two seniors gave it their best for their last competition. Well done Athens FFA

Here they are! The 6 students making HISTORY by competing at Regionals! SO PROUD

 

 

 Tuesday & Wednesday: SEEING BRADFORD COUNTY'S DIVERSE PROGRAMS!

This is my headline for the middle of the week. Mr. Steinfelt was so upset about the whole strike situation, but I decided to make the most of this unique situation and visited two excellent programs in the County!

Tuesday I visited Canton High School with Mr. Hojnowski! His program is very unique and he actually teaches a lot of science courses as well. While visiting I was able to interact with students that I have seen at other county events.

I observed a fascinating astronomy class!

The inflatable planetarium for Astronomy class! Who even knew that this was a possibility!!!!

 We also decided to go out to the stream in the Ag Exploratory class. It was very fun to work with the students and help Mr. Hojnowski because it logistically is hard supervising 18 students in a stream.

Stream study! How clean is your water?

 Wednesday I visited Troy HS and worked with Mr. Schanbacher for the day. I was blown away by their ag mechanics program, and enjoyed asking as many questions as I could think of. Mr. Schanbacher is a wealth of knowledge, and I appreciated his candor and stories.

Ag Mechanics 1 was learning how to clean the Oxy-Acetylene tip.

I also observed Animal Science and Forestry classes. Interestingly enough, Troy HS is one of the oldest Ag Programs in the State. While they aren't the oldest FFA, they had agriculture education courses long before they got their charter.

I LOVE history! See Leslie Applegates signature on there, pretty neat!

 Thursday: ATHENS RETURNS TO SCHOOL

Boy was I glad to get back to school, I was so nervous that I wouldn't have the chance to say Thanks and Goodbye to all of my students.
Thursday was bit hectic, the students were wound up pretty good from the strike, but we had an EGG-celent class in Introduction to Agriculture.

How can we grade eggs without a candler? This was a really fun lab with the students.

Friday: ATHENS FFA CELEBRATES A YEAR OF LEARNING, HARD WORK, AND MEMORIES 

Friday was my last day of student teaching, and I was so happy to be able to tell the students how much they meant to me and how much I have learned from them. With a heartfelt thanks, I gave them all cookies and wished them luck. It was a good day and we also celebrated Earth Day!

One of my students even got me flowers! I was really touched by that

Then, it was finally time for the banquet, and we were expecting around 220 people, wowzers!

It was a full house at the Athens HS Cafeteria, where our FFA Banquet was held.

The FFA and SAE Leadership Class planned the event, and it went very well. I was so proud of the students, and happy that they were able to show off their hard work and skills. Awards were handed out, speeches were given, tears were shed, memories were shared, and applause was given. It was truly a wonderful evening.

We were happy to hand out many awards.

At the end of the night, I was very sad to know that my student teaching experience was over, but it was really nice to be able to meet the families of the students who have come to mean so much to me!

Pictures for Days!

And of course, we had help cleaning up the banquet!

How else can you clean up balloons?

Hard to believe that my student teaching experience is over. It is with a heavy heart that I say thanks to Mr. Steinfelt and the Athens Agriculture Program and FFA for teaching me so much more than what can be recorded on a lesson plan.

Love
Sarabeth