FFA week is always an exciting time to advocate for agricultural education and it’s student organization, FFA. The middle school chapter keeps it low key but the high school is incredibly active. This year, since middle school is not allowed to have an FFA Spirit Week (we do get blue and gold day), one of my officers organized an “underground” FFA Spirit Week. She had a presentation for our February chapter meeting with the daily themes, gave out reminder slips to members the week before and then we had alerts on edmodo the night before each theme. I saw it unite the chapter. Members felt like they were in an elite group. Those who didn’t have me in class currently would pass me in the hall and point to their camo or FFA gear or boots and smile. On Friday, it was a school wide Blue and Gold Day. It was great to see so many of my colleagues sporting blue and gold as well as students finding me in my classroom or the halls to point out what they were wearing. One teacher’s support of Blue and Gold Day stood out. She called me to her room to see the “Do Now” she had posted on her board. To me, it was yet another reminder of why marketing the program in the school as well as outside is so critical.
I turned the responsibility of overseeing the members showcase work to my student teacher. Snow days put a little crimp in the planning, however they ended up getting a quality product done. Members names were written in the emblem corn kernels and the officers flamed brightly in the “Ignite” theme.
Thursday, the High School Chapter hosted the monthly Burlington County Board of Agriculture Meeting. This gave me the chance to tour my student teacher through the high school and share the showcases and window displays their members created. The window art showcased that agriculture careers include more than farming, highlighted FFA and of course included ever popular bacon. The Board of Agriculture meeting also had two county freeholders (Aimee Belgard and Joanne Schwartz) in attendance. Again, another great way to showcase student leadership through FFA.
Friday is what I like to think of as “The Big Day” of FFA Week. It’s the chance to bring my middle school classes over to the high school FFA organized petting zoo. For some students, it is their first chance to see live the animals we have talked about in class such as alpacas or even sheep. For others it is the first opportunity to touch a cow or hold a chick. Observing them during this experience never gets old for me.
One of my classes had FFA members who no longer have class with me join us. It gave the perfect chance for a photo op with New Jersey FFA President Kyle Clement. This photo also gave me a chance to play with my recently installed PopaGraph iphone photo editing app. 🙂
Lastly, FFA Week gave me the time to surprise two of my agricultural education teaching friends with little gifts that I had begun working on when inspiration struck a bit ago. I enjoy cross stitching in my free time and recent snow days and Olympic viewing have given me time to work on the craft. As a result, I created a small framed owl in National Blue and Corn Gold for New Jersey Ag Teaching Colleague Tiffany Morey (see her FFA Week blog) and an owl keychain for Wisconsin Educator Kellie Claflin (she blogs too)
In closing, I share with you this reminder about the need to continue advocating for agricultural education and FFA and it’s impact from National FFA Organization COO Josh Bledsoe.
McTeaching Ag 