On Monday, I started my first day as a student teacher at Fort Cherry. My alarm went off at 4 AM and I made my way to meet the bus at McGuffey High School. Mrs. Hoover, Mr. Laesure and I got the students aboard. We then made our way to Fort Cherry to pick up the rest of the students and headed to Harrisburg. My first day of student teaching was here and I was more than ready!
The weather was not
the best on Monday, and as we were leaving both Fort Cherry and McGuffey school
districts had cancelled school for the day. We all talked about the situation
and talked to people ahead of us on the road and they said that the roads were
clear. The bus driver was confident, Mrs. Hoover and Mr. Laesure talked to
their school administrators and we decided to keep going. The rest of the trip
to Harrisburg was pretty uneventful. I am really glad I was able to see this
scenario play out and how to make these
decisions.
We were able to make
it to the Farmshow complex just after noon. Students were given explicit
directions as to what needed to be done BEFORE they left the bus. I observed
this often on the trip. We always gave students directions prior to them
leaving the bus so that we had their attention and it was not chaos. We were
then able to meet students in the large arena for the Mid-Winter Convention.
Five students received their Keystone Degree this year and two students
received a jacket from the PA FFA Alumni.
We took the students
to Hoss's for dinner and then to the hotel to change. Then we took them to a
local bowling alley for 2 hours. Mrs. Hoover's and Mrs. Cambruzzi's advice was
simple: wear the students out! And to spend as little time as possible in the
hotel.
The following day we
took the kids to Hershey's Chocolate World where they were able to learn about
proper chocolate tasting and some even were able to make their own chocolate
candy bar! The trip home gave us ample time to discuss things that could be changed
in the future. One of these would be to have a single drop-off/pick-up location
instead of picking up at both schools to cut on travel time. Looking back, I
can also acknowledge that there were no behavior issues on the trip and all of
the teachers were well respected and had good rapport with their students. I
hope that my trips with my ag program go this smoothly, even with weather
hiccups!!
