Good Weather and Vibes {Teach} on the Block #week9

As a student I loved field trips! Meeting new friends, exploring a different area, learning a subject matter that I had never heard about was always a lot of fun for me! This week I relived that same passion when I chaperoned a trip to Student Legislative Leadership Conference, also known as SLLC. Although it was a great trip, I hit reality hard when I realized that the week was not over and I still had to teach when I got back that week. After those three days of not being at school, you can bet that I was not ready to go back to reality.

Let’s break down the week, shall we?

Pros: This week was nice because I got a break to go to SLLC and spend some great quality time with some quality students! The students that I hung out with weren’t in any of my classes so it was nice to talk to new students and get to know them!

When I returned back to school, I had to prepare for the week and get my brain back on track to get into “teacher mode” which honestly was very hard because the weather this week was absolutely beautiful! Beautiful weather = Henry’s Got Crops is in full swing of motion! What is that you may ask? Saul has a unique opportunity that allows the student to see crops be grown in large amounts, knowledge on how to harvest the crops that are grown, and what happens to waste and how it is turned into compost! Pretty cool stuff!

When I saw what was happening, I honestly had an Ag-Attack and geeked out! Seriously people, I can’t make this stuff up! My students were learning firsthand how to plant rows of crops by hand and how to harvest the crops that were planted! After they harvested, they had a process of cleaning, drying and storing the lettuce that we were harvesting that day AND they did it as a team! Literal mind explosion!

Cons: The good vibes from the weather made it hard to create a positive learning environment for activities outside! The moment the students stepped out of the class into the sunlight, school was the last thing from their mind for my group of seniors. At one point I had to realize that I had a lesson to accomplish but how can I turn it around to have my students want to do the lesson while enjoying their time outside. Seeing that this could have been a losing battle, I brought out the big guns and decided to let the students walk around with their friends BUT they had to post pictures of what we were learning in class to our class InstAGram account! Everything from water erosion to conventional till was shared over our social media site under the @WBSaulEnviro account (shameless plug to check it out!) Turning a bad situation to something better made me realize that I might be getting this teaching thing down!

Overall it was a fantastic week that pushed me enough to continue making this experience a positive one for me and my students! Let’s bring on the double digits for week numero 10!