How to Deal with Early Dismissal

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day One

Field Trip: The 102nd Pennsylvania Farm Show and the 89th PA FFA Mid-Winter Convention

Essential Questions for Today:

#PSUAgEd18 Student Teachers Feelings

• How do you best handle an early dismissal while on a field trip with students?

• What does Mid-Winter Convention mean to the students?

  I am super excited to announce the first official blog post of the new year.   This also means that I am officially beginning my student teaching experience. When I try to imagine what I expected for my first day I kind of anticipated something that was more like an orientation to the program.
  
  Then I realized that with everything in the Agricultural Education community that was last week.  Now its time to be dived right into the deep end of sorts.
  
  
  

  

  Waiting to get onto the buses

  Task Item One: Chaperoning an Field Trip

  That was the fun part. Chaperoning can sound scary at first when you look at it but it really is just the basics of being a chaperone:
  
  
  1. Sign kids in before you leave the school.
  2. Check in with kids at one point of the day.
  3. Collect field trip forms if need be.
  4.  Check kids in again before you leave the field trip site.
  5. Return to the school.
  6. Go home yourself.
   

 Complicated? Not really. But you know what really messes things up: Early Dismissals which then means your students have to leave early. Here are the lessons I learned about Early Dismissals:

• Wait for the school to tell you what the plan is for your field trip. Maybe the school thinks they can wait till you are or maybe the school is planning on getting you right now.  Wait till they tell you and then tell students.
• It's ok to tell students that as you wait for instructions from the school to tell them we do not have a plan yet.
• Have student numbers and have them in a group text for you to give them instructions. Sometimes you need to tell them what's going on ASAP and sometimes like in a conference center you don't have all of your students in front of you but need to communicate with all of them at once. 
• Don't be afraid to tell parents you have yet to be given instructions from the school so you do not have a major plan currently.  Parents though they care about their children are understanding of saying "Hey right now I'm waiting for further instructions, once I know, your child will know and then I'll let you know as well." The last thing you want to do is tell a parent A when the plan is really C. Parents should understand that announcements for early dismissals can be a bit hectic with communicating to all teachers right away.  
• Have a student help you with check out.  Students know each other really really well and will be honest with who is here and who isn't here.
• Finally, Appreciate the Bus Drivers. As the drivers getting students from place to place they are the real MVPs.

 Task Item Two: Mid-Winter Convention 

"They will grow into these jackets"

This was my first mid-winter convention. To me the biggest take away was the purpose of Mid-Winter Convention:

STUDENT SHOWCASE

I really liked that everything about Mid Winter was Student Centered.  Like every aspect was lets focus on program and more on let's celebrate the coolness of the students involved with FFA. That was awesome in my mind. 

It started with celebrating student success with major awards known as Star Awards. Then it was celebrate parents. Then the young students got to put on their new jackets.  The downside with a early dismissal is that many of the 9th graders couldn't stay for their jackets but the whole size of the students getting to put on their own blue and gold was an awesome experience.  Then we highlighted key stone recipients.

I personally can't wait till I have my own students and get to see them wear their own blue and gold.  I think even though this day felt hectic it was a great first day of student teaching. Here's to the next fifteen Mondays!

To Be Continued . . .