Week 10: Learners Today, Leaders Tomorrow

What an exciting week this has been! To begin, I started out my week by attending my first ever SLLC (State Legislative Leadership Conference) in Harrisburg! 

On Saturday morning we loaded up the van and headed east to work the Keystone Truck and Tractor pulls at the farm farm show complex. Our boys got to be down on the track dragging the exhaust bag and our girls worked at the doors, VIP areas and sold 50/50 tickets. This was a great activity because not only did the students get to attend the pulls, the proceeds benefit the FFA!

On Sunday morning we began the conference. We had 3 Juniors, 1 senior and a senior who was selected to be a second year scholar on the trip with us. Throughout the conference the students had the chance to learn more about parliamentary procedure and different aspects of the legislative system. It was awesome to see how excited the students were and to see so many different FFA chapters come together. 

On Monday we spent the afternoon doing community service at a local church. We cleaned windows, walls and everything in between. It was a lot of fun to be able to give back to the community while attending the conference.

Being on this trip was a great learning experience for many reasons. I was able to see all the behind the scenes work that has to take place in order for a trip to be successful. Everything from making sure the students knew what they needed to pack, making sure we were registered properly and planning out where we were stopping to eat along our five hour drive.

When we got home on Tuesday I was exhausted but knew I had to get to work on my lessons for the rest of the week. In Ag 1 we continued working on our benches on the shop days and while we were in the classroom we talked about swine. This week instead of lecturing and having the students take notes, I assigned them a breed of pig and they had to look up the information and present it to the class. This worked well becuase the students were more involved and took more ownership over the lesson.

In Ag 2 we are perfecting our Arc welding skills but running beads and finally doing some butt joints. This was a fun activity because after the students welding their metal together we would bust it apart and see how deep their penetration was and how good their weld actually was. 

In regards to the FFA chapter, our busy week continued as we had the chance to go out into the community on Thursday night and perform for the local Lions Club. A group of our square dancers traveled to the meeting and did a demonstration of three songs and ate dinner with the members of the Lions Club. It was great to meet more members of the community and show off what the FFA has been up to.

Next week will be another busy week because our fundraiser will be delivered, our new jackets are coming in, and we will be attending the local livestock committee meeting and the western region PAAE meeting! 

"Some people dream of success, others wake up and work hard for it."

-Winston Churchill