SLLC, Banquet, and Oh Yeah Teaching

What a week it has been, a week that started at 10:00 am Sunday morning and ended at about 4:30 Friday evening when I could barely keep my eyes open.


This past week I attended the State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC) where I had the opportunity to help grade proficiency applications, attend professional development workshops, and participate in a community service project. Having attended SLLC as a student I had a pretty good idea of how the conference would go and what parts my students would find the most enjoyable. As the conference concluded we geared up to head back to school for banquet practice. Yes I said banquet practice, on top of everything else we had our 55th annual FFA banquet this past week.

Banquet practice was a little hostile as we brought back 7 sleep deprived students, most of whom are on our current officer team and the upcoming officer team. Even with the sleep deprivation the practice went on successfully, and I became even more excited to see how this nearly 400 person banquet would turn out.

Finally Thursday arrived, banquet day, this meant that my second and fourth block classes would be working on final banquet prep items. This left my third block class for teaching where we finally removed our engine valves and camshaft, the final parts to remove for our engine blocks.

Four block is always used as banquet setup time. As 40 students entered into the cafeteria the chaos began. As Ms. Cornman began directing students how to set up the tables, I found myself following in suit directing students and handing off napkins, placemats, cups, and giving further directions to students not keeping busy. Much to my surprise the entire cafeteria was set up in about an hour and the students began to leave to get ready for the banquet which was to start promptly at 6:30. A small group of students stayed while myself and Ms. Cornman sat at our desks unable to do anything productive ourselves.

The banquet was quite a successful student run program that the community enjoyed and was excited to be apart of. Once the cafeteria was cleaned up and we made our way back to our office I sat there, all of the tiredness gone, only happiness remained. It was at that moment that it hit me once again, this was it, this was what its all for, this is the adrenaline rush that comes from being an Ag Teacher.

The week ended on a tired note as we struggled to get through second block as we were all exhausted from the night before. Even with this we managed to concluded our pesticide safety skit videos and complete our formulation scenarios. In ag mechanics we spent part of the block playing review jeopardy, something that my students were really getting into. I had played jeopardy with this group before in a different manor and the students were not thrilled. This time I brought the hype and excitement to the game, which translated into my students being just as excited. However, the sub in the room probably thought I was a crazy women… oh well… its all in the name of learning.

The day ended with building strands of DNA in fourth block and me making my way back to my desk to complete my CASE scholarship essay at the sound of the bell.

Thats week 10 in a nutshell. I can not believe that I only have 5 more weeks to spend with these amazing students, 5 more weeks for them to shape me into the first year teacher I am becoming.