Growing the Extra Mile

Throughout my student teaching experience, I have really strived to ensure that I am implementing all aspected of the three circle model into my agricultural education program. One of the main components of an agricultural education program is Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). An SAE is an agricultural related, student led, work based learning experience. This can look different for every student. It can include working at an agricultural related business, doing agricultural related research, or becoming an entrepreneur in your own agricultural business. The possibilities of an SAE are truly endless.  Throughout my time student teaching at Biglerville, I have been fortunate enough to work with students who have a wide variety of SAE projects. The first project I go to visit involved a student who was raising puppies that they had recently rescued. This student worked to record time that they spent working with the puppies, the expenses related to raising puppies, and the ov...

 This semester, I've had a lot of great opportunities to watch students grow as leaders. One of these opportunities has included the chance to travel to the Agriculture Cooperations Establishes Success (ACES) conference in Harrisburg. This is an overnight conference where students attend professional development workshops and have the opportunity to interact with other FFA members from across the state of Pennsylvania.  As a former FFA member, I was able to attend ACES four times throughout my high school career, however, this was my first opportunity to be on the advisor side of things for this experience. If I am being completely honest, I really had no idea what my FFA advisor did while I was in my professional development workshops. (I kinda assumed that he went shopping or something.) However, I've realized that ACES is an opportunity for teachers to learn and grow just as much as it is for the students. While our students were in their workshops, we were also able to att...