Connections

On Tuesday I went to the local grocery store, where one of my students packs groceries. He carried my groceries out to the vehicle for me, and in those few minutes that we got to talk, I found out about his future goals to become a state trooper. Now I have a closer bond with that student in the classroom.

Our FFA president also works at the grocery store as a cashier. I asked how late she has to work, and from there the conversation went to the fact that she just got accepted at Penn State. Even though I do not have her for any Ag classes, since that conversation, she talks to me nearly every time she is down to the Ag classroom. She even cleared out several students who came down for study hall and were talking... :) She told them that they were being distracting to my class that I was teaching, and that they needed to be respectful to me and to take their work into the shop! Woohoo... that was fine by me!

The 3rd connection was my first SAE visit which finally worked out… more about that to come in a separate blog post…

For our FFA event, all of the 6-12th grade students and faculty were in the gymnasium... we had multiple activities including: feed the pig, musical hay bales, shear the sheep, hay bale toss, milk chugging, pole bending, and milk the cow. As I made my way around the gym, students were continually shouting out "Miss Spicher" and waving... when I made eye contact, gave them a smile, and waved back, their faces shone, and then I would hear them proudly telling their friends that I was their new Ag teacher... all I can say was that I didn't know that I was that popular - especially considering some of the comments I get in class... but it just went to show that I am connecting with students, and it gave me the opportunity to connect with students that aren’t in the Ag program as well.

A connection that seems to be lacking… what you put into a class often reflects what you get out of it… I have several students who take the class seriously and took the exam review seriously… guess what? They also got the highest grades –they did not all get “A’s”, but they were still at the top of the class… several others (based on their past performance in the class) could have easily scored higher, but they weren’t concerned with paying attention, and told me they knew everything I reviewed… Great! ... evidently not...  Some just have a bad case of senioritis, and I’m going to have to explore some methods for encouraging them to be more studious and take studying for their exams and their grades more seriously...

Eye connections… a few of my Intro. to Ag students don't want to be in the class and make constant attempts to distract others - not loud and obnoxious - just in sneaky ways like making faces, mouthing the next word of the Creed to the student trying to say it for a grade, quietly laughing at other students while they are saying the Creed, or whispering when I'm helping another student; however, that "teacher look" sure had the desired effect on a few of them... I made steady, “unhappy” eye contact until the grin left his face and his head dropped… as soon as I turned back to helping  the other one, I heard a whispered “boy, you got the look!”... it was almost funny... I won that battle! The other student who silenced when given the look, but who “revived” every time in between got to spend the last few min. of the class in the shop with my teacher’s aide and substitute teacher...  oh, the absolute silence after that... I won that battle too!