The First Month

I've been at MacArthur Senior High School for four weeks. It feels unreal to think I've been student teaching for a month now. How time flies. So far I am loving this experience. My cooperating teacher and the other ag teacher at the school are absolutely phenomenal. This past month has been full of excitement and adventure adjusting to a high school that's almost the size of my hometown and getting to know some of the 5 million people that share my new zip code.

Here is what I've learned thus far student teaching....

1. Sometimes you have to start at the very beginning. For example, the first week of class Mr. Arkadie was discussing horse colorings and one student asked if we were going to talk about horses all semester. Mr. Arkadie turned to him and said "yes, son, this is a horse class." The student looking completely surprised responded with "it is? I thought this was equine science." ....and I thought I didn't know much about horses. My first week here I went with a couple students and Mr. Arkadie to some surrounding elementary students to host livestock petting zoos for students. One group of 2nd graders came out of the building and the principal told the teacher they were to visit the lamb first. The teacher nodded at the principal and said "the lamb? Ok, which one's that?"....I wish I had this story to tell three months ago when people were asking why on earth I thought I needed to go to Houston to teach agriculture education.

2. Sarcasm is a language every high school student speaks and valuable education tool. Considering this is Houston, Texas and my high school sits in a very Hispanic neighborhood I was worried I might need to know Spanish to fit in, however, the only language I need in high school is sarcasm, which is good because it's one that comes somewhat naturally. Recently, one teacher approached a young man and woman in the hall who obviously liked each other, or at least the way each other smelled, and said "you know, if you train your woman right she'll walk beside you and won't need to hold on to her like you are." I decided to get sarcastic after three weeks of holding my tongue and the students are responding positively.

3. There's more to agricultural education than FFA. At MacArthur, FFA is an option, but these students do not bleed corn gold and national blue, in fact they hardly know that is. Unless FFA meetings happen during the school day, hardly anyone attends. Unless that state convention is within 8 hours of Houston, Mac doesn't go. We aren't spending all spring gearing up for CDE contests and apply for proficiency awards, instead we are frantically getting ready for the Aldine ISD livestock show. The AISD show is a unique opportunity for students in FFA to show livestock. In the fall all the students who are interested get to buy animals, spend the winter taking care of them, and show them and then sell them in the spring. For many of these students their first time seeing a lamb is the day they show up in the fall to select theirs for the year. The neatest part about the show is that between October and February all the animals live together in the school barns. Every morning and after school students tend to and work with their animals. They learn responsibility, showmanship, and about animal nutrition together-- the perks of rural life within the city limits!

4. There's more to life then education. Here, high school is the least of these students' worries, in many cases. The school day is just the beginning to their very long day, or the end to a very long night.

5. When in doubt, grind. The first three hours of every day are welding in Mr. Arkadie's class. Right now things are pretty intense working to get a trailer made for the Aldine ISD Livestock Show silent auction. Despite being busy, having nearly 30 students is too many to have working on a trailer. While waiting to start new projects I've had to get creative in keeping students entertained. Without enough welders for student to practice welding with (Perhaps the ag ed dept could ship a few of their new ones down here....) the grinder has become my salvation. When students can't find anything to work on we find old pieces of welded metal and have competitions to see who can do the best job grinding down the weld. It's safer than welding, and cheaper, and grinding is a life skill everyone needs.

The days are long and the nights are short. I go to school in the dark and sometimes come home in the dark. Yet, I've never had so much energy or gotten out of bed at 5:10am with so much enthusiasm.