The Power of YOUth and National FFA

This week's blog is going to take a slightly different direction because all of my classes were working on projects. This allowed me to work on my positive reinforcement and monitoring skills but most of the work done this week was done independently by the students. This gave me more time to absorb and take in all the aspects of NATIONAL FFA WEEK!

I am still fairly new to FFA, all the experiences I have had with it have been during my college career. This week I really started to understand just how amazing the program is and how awesome all the students involved in it are. When I attended FFA functions in PA I always felt welcomed but still felt like an outsider because I was always "the only one from New Jersey," as I attended different functions this week I finally got that "family feel" that everyone always talks about with FFA and it truly is a great feeling. I was welcomed by the high school students, that I had never met to attend a conference with them as one of their chaperons/advisers. 

Before I get into all that I would like to start out with what we did in the Middle School for National FFA Week. We put together our showcase on Tuesday. The students who helped with that were amazing, they each added I little extra touch to make the display cases look awesome! They came to the table with so many amazing ideas, they made it hard for us to narrow it all down to one. The final theme? "What are you waiting for? Ignite the fire for FFA Week!" Sadly in all the craziness of FFA Week I forgot to take pictures of the showcase! In the Middle School we also had an "underground spirit week" (we aren't allowed to have spirit weeks) but that did not stop the kids from showing their FFA pride. One of our Vice Presidents came up with the idea and she planned it all really well...

• Tuesday was camo day
• FFA Shirt day (I rocked my PSU Collegiate FFA Polo :) )
• Boot Day (except for UGGS)
• Blue & Gold Day

I have to say the coolest part about our underground spirit week was walking down the hallway and students who are only in FFA would come up to Dr. McLean and I and show us how they were supporting the theme of the day. It was a really great feeling and I really liked how it showed unity for FFA. The kids were so excited about it!

Now onto my high school adventures. I was able to attend Advocacy & Legislative Leadership Day (ALLD) with the high school as one of their chaperons/advisers. Before Thursday I had not had the chance to meet any of the high school FFA students before and I will admit I was a little nervous, they welcomed me with open arms. I loved speaking with the students about their SAEs and their FFA experiences. I had a lot of fun with the students and got to learn a lot about "taking on the adviser role" at a conference. We started out the day at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) with a small college career fair. At the career fair I got to meeting Ms. Morey, who I actually knew from before. We live about 2 miles from each other at my home in Atlantic County, and both volunteered at the Atlantic Riding Center for the Handicapped back in the day! Talk about a small world!! From the college fair we ventured into the room where brunch and opening ceremonies was to be held. But there was a twist, we were all mixed up and no one from out chapter was sitting next to each other. As I made my way to the other side of the room I looked around to see if I could find a familiar face from our chapter, there wasn't one in sight. I sat down and introduced myself to the FFA members and we began chatting about their SAEs, how long they have been in FFA, where they were from, etc. By the time the first speaker took the podium we were laughing and having a great time. 

As we ate brunch many speakers took the podium and challenged us to think about ourselves, how we fit into the world of agriculture, and finding our passion for what we love. We heard from the New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture, Doug Fisher. He talked to us about how we fit into the agriculture industry and sometimes your future career will be related to agriculture and you may not even know it. He also told us that sometimes the path you want to take may not be the one that you will take, you may have a direction but you road map may lead you somewhere else. 

NJ Secretary of Agriculture

I think that one of the most powerful speeches given that morning was from Mr. Shane Jacques who is the Education Specialist for the State Officer Programs from National FFA Organization. He spoke about the trip the State Officers from all over the country recently took to Africa. He showed pictures of some of the experiences that they had over there. The pictures of some of the housing structures were a lot different from what we see here. He challenged us to think about the differences that American agriculture is making and how different our agriculture industry is here in America. It really set us up to think about the reflection that our State Officers shared with us as the next speakers. 

Finally, we got to hear from our Lt Governor, Kim Guadagno. She was very inspirational and I think out of all the speakers her message stuck with me the most. She told us about how she got to where she is today and she said "don't let anyone tell you that you cannot do something." She said that a lot of the jobs she has had was because someone told her that she could not have them because she was a girl. She said to let those words add fuel to our fire and help us to become determined to succeed. She was a very funny speaker and she was so proud of all the hard work that FFA was doing. 

Lt. Governor

While the other students attended a rotation of workshops with the State Officer Team members, I got to attend the special Presidents workshop with our Chapter President Ben. We toured the New Jersey Farm Bureau building and also the State Capital Building of New Jersey. I got to talk one on one with Ben about some of the amazing things that the high school chapter is doing and also got to learn about the history of our state. Surprisingly I have been to the PA State Capital Building a few times and the Nation's Capital Building but not the New Jersey Capital Building. It was a great experience for myself too. Upon our return to the conference all of the chapter presidents from across the state talked with our State President Kyle about some of the awesome things that each school does for National FFA Week and some of the things that they learned that day. To see all of them sharing ideas like that was really inspiring and I think that everyone got some neat ideas to take back to their chapters and maybe use next year for National FFA Week.

 

Various pictures from the trip to the capital

After a long day at the conference I attended the Burlington County Board of Ag meeting that night and got to see the officers preform opening ceremonies in action. I was told that I better study up the adviser part as well because we have 2 more meetings before the end of student teaching and I will be playing the role of the adviser in at least one of them! 

To cap off the week! We took all 6 of the classes to the high school for the petting zoo that they have each year. There were cows, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, alpacas, and some baby chicks. All of the students LOVED it! Each of their faces lit up as they walked in and got to pet animals that some of them may have never gotten the chance to see before. Perhaps the funniest part of the whole day was the boxes that students had to stick their hands in and guess what they were. Some of the reactions were PRICELESS! I was also very proud of myself because I made friends with a cow! (It was a  huge accomplishment for me, because cows and I don't always see eye to eye!)

I also had a nice time hanging out with some of the State Officers. I enjoyed having conversations with them and finding out about all their FFA experiences. This week I learned that the FFA part of the 3 Circle Model really is important and it make such a wonderful impact on so many students. It makes me wish that we had FFA in my high school, but I am thankful that I get to have these experiences now and can help keep FFA as a positive experience for students.  

 One of my students had some epic photo bombing skills (permission was granted to use this photo)

Our State President Kyle and I