Countdown to the End: Day 24

Students packaging Meals from the
Heartland at State FFA Convention. 

Today I took 18 students to State FFA Convention on the Iowa State Campus. We stopped in a town along the way to pick up an advisor and her 12 students. We have traveled to events before together, and she is one of the advisors that we go to National FFA Convention with in Kentucky. I really like that Ag teachers are such a close nit community, and we really help each other. In sports other coaches know and respect each other, but they wouldn’t necessarily help the competition. It’s understood that this job is hard enough without being an expert on dozens of different topics, so Ag teachers share material with each other. Even notes on how to train a team have been shared with me. I call it the Ag teachers code. Everyone knows that the retention for Ag teachers is very low, so anything that we can do to make it easier for each other is what we do. In the classroom Ag teachers are their own islands within the school district. However, our Ag islands dot the state and are connected by our common understanding of craziness. Every Ag teacher is just a little crazy, which bonds us together. It’s just that crazy that keeps us going.

Today I tried to recruit student teachers into taking my teaching position. Many of them already had jobs outside of teaching. I tried to persuade them out of it, but they would be walking away from a job that paid far more than teaching to do far less. I couldn’t argue with that when I was walking away from teaching. As I was on the recruitment hunt I spoke with another Ag teacher that said he knew someone that applied for my position. I didn’t know anything about it. I was very surprised, and I stopped trying to recruit soon to be Iowa State grads.

My students went through the career show, and got many free things, like a selfie stick. By the end of the day I was so sick of seeing the selfie stick. They sat through a session and listened to an inspirational speaker. The inspirational speaker was funny, but it seemed like it was geared more for college age students. He swore a few times, and he spoke casually about sex and drinking. I know these are things that high school age students deal with, but high school teachers still have to answer to parents. His message was to give everyone the 10 things needed to be successful in life. Some of it touched on religion, which was personally okay with me, but I couldn’t believe that it was being allowed. The speaker mentioned that he was a minister, and again it was great to hear morality being taught to students before they are 18, but it seems so contradictory. A couple of years ago a retiring FFA officer gave an address where he said he was gay, which was a surprise to everyone. Many school administrators, teachers, and parents had a huge issue with that. They were concerned that it wasn’t the right time and place and should never have happened. I thought the student had tremendous courage for doing that. Now, two years later, we have “reflections” before each session, which are prayers, and many officers and keynote speakers addressing religion and God. We can’t speak publicly about homosexuality, but we can speak publicly about God? This is the exact opposite of school. Most schools encourage gay straight alliance clubs, while they prohibit any teachings of religion or God. I would really like parents to stop being offended by every little thing, including religion and homosexuality. As a teacher I can’t say Thanksgiving because most Native Americans don’t celebrate it. We can’t say Christmas or Easter, all of these breaks from school are known as holiday breaks. I understand that names can sometimes hit a nerve with people, but why would you want your child exposed to less? That's not how the world is. Parents can give their children direction on sexual orientation and religion, but what happens when parents don't give direction? It's usually left up to schools to give those kids direction. I hope my child learns from the example that I set, but I want them exposed to other religions and people that are different. I want them to be prepared for the real world. 

I know I made a good choice because I won’t have to be stuck in a bus loaded with students on a long trip.