Guest Blogger Series: Finding the sweet spot between the three circles- Using FFA and SAE to enhance your classroom.

Editor's Note: This blog is part of a series of guest contributors from the national school-based agricultural education family. Parker Bane has taught at Pontiac Township High School since 2003. Parker has been active in the Illinois Association of Vocational Agriculture Teachers, serving as President in 2011-2012, and the National Association of Agriculture Educators, serving as Region IV Vice President. Parker is a CASE Master Teacher and currently serves on the National FFA Foundation Board of Trustees. Parker's wife, Angie, teaches agriculture in Tremont, Illinois, and the couple currently resides in Towanda, IL with their daughter, Ella. 

Education is a profession filled with ritual and tradition.  From the silly hats worn by professors at collegiate commencement ceremonies to the signaling of time by metal bells, we educators have inherited a great number of traditions that have been and will continue to be passed from class to class.

One of those traditions for me is "the FFA unit" in Intro to Ag.  It's my chance to sell the organization that puts the "cult" in agriculture and get our newest students excited about the agriculture education model.  I'm not sure when it happened (I'm guessing sometime after I adopted the CASE Intro to AFNR curriculum), but eventually, I found myself trying to explain the ag ed model to students.  Over the course of my career, I have really liked how I explain the ag ed model to them.  I think it's not only a good starting point for my Intro to Ag students, but it is also a good starting point for this blog.

So...here's what I give them every year.

1.  I have them draw three circles in their notebooks together in Venn Diagram fashion.  All three circles intersect equally.

2.  I label the circles - Classroom Instruction.  FFA.  SAE.

3.  I then place the following bullet points underneath each circle's label.

• Classroom Instruction -  "You will gain knowledge and start to develop skill.  Here is where you will learn content and concepts."
• FFA - "You will get the opportunity to practice the knowledge you've gained and compete with other students to show that your knowledge is more than theirs.  You'll also get to develop leadership."
• SAE - "In this circle, you will get to put this knowledge to work for you.  If you do this right, you'll grow beyond anything that I can teach you."

This is the foundation.  From here you have a choice.  Will you be an FFA Advisor that happens to teach a little bit, or will you become a true Ag Education Teacher?

The truth is, that I really believe that our paths as professionals are evolving and ever changing.  Education is a dynamic industry, and to be honest, there will be some days that you feel like you're sucked into the FFA vortex while other days, FFA and SAE will be the last things on which you'll want to focus.

Here are some tips that I've found for balancing the three circles and becoming a true Ag Education Teacher:

1.  Obtain and use solid curriculum resources.  Personally, I am very partial to CASE, but there are a lot of good curriculum materials out there.  Some of the "curriculum" that's out there is also absolute junk.  I purchased an "Agribusiness Pathway" from a respected curriculum provider, and after $1500 of investment, I found that there was literally NOTHING there but a couple of lessons on Job Interviewing.  I was disgusted (and haven't purchased anything from that vendor since).  Critically evaluate your materials and remember that if you use good curriculum materials, you will be less likely to neglect the Classroom Instruction circle.

2.  Recognize that FFA is supposed to reflect your curriculum.  This means that if you are a solid teacher of, let's say...Ag Sales, then your FFA chapter's Ag Sales team should be good.  Likewise, if you don't have much of a horticulture component to your program, then should you be spending the time and effort to train a Nursery and Landscape team?  See number 3 below for more on this topic.

3.  But...FFA is also an opportunity to differentiate.  We do not offer ag mechanics courses here, but the Ag Mechanics CDE gives us the opportunity to offer something mechanical to students that may want it.  You have to be really careful with this, though.  If the students do not have classroom instruction on which to build a knowledge base, then you're going to have to give that to them outside of class, which takes time and energy.

4.  We don't teach to the CDE, but sometimes, following the CDE rules leads to some really solid instruction.  As a rule, I have always felt like completing all of the tasks required in the National FFA Ag Sales CDE makes for an EXCELLENT ag sales unit in class.  In my mind, the same could be said for forestry.  As someone with very little forestry background, I found that in my natural resources courses (pre-CASE NRE), that using the FFA Forestry CDE tasks as the end objectives for my instructional units and designing the instruction backwards from there was a natural fit in my classroom.

As an added bonus, FFA CDE success energizes the classroom instruction underlying it.  In other words, winning breeds winning in other arenas.

5.  Use your students' SAE projects for instruction.  Right now, I have a student working the turf circuit at one of our local golf courses.  As we are coming up on our Turfgrass unit in Landscaping class, I asked if he could line up a tour and demo of the golf course's equipment.  Being immersed in the project every day, he has done an excellent job in setting up the tour for us.  I have used this strategy to set up many instructional experiences.

6.  Use SAE tools for instruction.  Some states have mandated record systems.  Others do not.  Many use AET.  Regardless of which system you use, I have found that asking students to complete and submit assignments using the platform of the SAE record system helps naturalize them to the system (and through it, SAE).  For example, AET has a great journal feature.  Every now and then, I will have the students complete reflection questions on the AET journal and submit them through that.

7.  Use SAE tools for FFA.  I LOVE the AET's FFA roster submission tool.  It eliminates the need for a separate (and exactly matching spreadsheet) for inputting new members into the FFA roster.  Just get the students into the system, have them fill out their profiles, check their names, and click send!  It's heavenly.

Truthfully, I could go on for hours about this topic.  These are just a few of the things that I've picked up over the years.  What questions can I help with?  Email me at pbane@pontiac90.org.

To see other Guest Blogger submissions from Mr. Bane:
2015 - Organizing your Instruction...Literally.

Submitted by:
Parker Bane, @parkerbane
 pbane@pontiac90.org
Agriscience Teacher
Pontiac Township

Guest Blogger Series: Organizing your instruction...Literally

Editor's Note: This blog is part of a series of guest contributors from the national school-based agricultural education family. Parker Bane has taught at Pontiac Township High School since 2003. Parker has been active in the Illinois Association of Vocational Agriculture Teachers, serving as President in 2011-2012, and the National Association of Agriculture Educators, serving as Region IV Secretary since 2012. Parker is a CASE Master Teacher and currently serves on the National FFA Foundation Board of Trustees. Parker's fiancée, Angie, teaches agriculture in Tremont, Illinois, and the couple currently resides in Towanda, IL with their daughter, Ella.

Crazy...absolutely crazy is what you are probably going to call me when I finish this story. I’m the ag teacher that couldn’t figure out how to spend $50,000. Shocked? Well...I can explain. No, really. In July, 2003, I stepped into a situation that most ag teachers can only dream about. I was hired right out of college to start a brand new ag program for Pontiac High School, a school of about 1000 students. The Superintendent that hired me, a man named Butch Cotter, was famous for his support of ag teachers, having built the powerhouse ag program at Seneca High School. Butch’s father, Howard taught agriculture for many years at neighboring Flanagan. His support for me was true to the legend. He came to me and said “I think it’ll take about $50,000 to get this off the ground.” And so it began.

Agriculture Labs are truly multi-purpose spaces. We do a lot of different things in our lab. You can see our workstations in the background of one of our Chapter FFA Meetings. Think of all the different things you'll do in your space... 

“I’m going to get so much cool stuff!” was my thinking. However, like most other experiences of my first year, it wasn’t quite so easy. In retrospect, I learned that I was my own biggest stumbling block with this. Long story short, when the fiscal year ended, I had a lot of stuff, but I’d only been able to leverage about 1/5th of the support my school threw my way. Although I’ve survived, I could have gotten off to a lot better start if there were some things I’d known. Here is what I learned along the way. To be fair, I’m still learning.

1. Purchasing and ordering takes time...a LOT of time. One of my biggest hangups was that I had more ag students my first year than anticipated. This was great for the program, but bad for me, because I had to sacrifice my only prep period (during my first year teaching, building a brand new program) to accommodate an extra section of an ag course (and a two-period block of non-ag welding). Simply put, I ran out of time and energy to research catalogs, fill out purchase orders, order, pick up, inventory, and store stuff. If you have any control over your time, budget a lot of time for getting the things you need. If you have the things you need, your lessons go smoother, and your planning is easier. I’ll put in a CASE plug here...one reason I like the CASE project so much is that they build “purchase manuals” with lists of everything you need to teach the CASE courses. They give you the list, the vendors, and throw in discounts that are competitive. It’s been a game-changer for me.

2. Especially when your “building” or “re-building” a program, dedicate $0.50 of every dollar you spend on your “stuff” to purchasing storage and organization for that stuff. If you buy $1000 in equipment, you should plan on spending at least $500 in cabinets to store that equipment, because…See point number 3...

This was our lab circa 2011. Notice the forklift. That was a nice thought...BUT didn't work out. 

3.  Organizing your stuff is so much easier when you have a place to put the things you need. When you start teaching in a school, plan ahead as much as you can by creating places for all the things you’ll need to store. If you can’t afford cabinets, get used lumber and cinder blocks and build makeshift shelves. It’ll still look better than the tubs on the floor or crap laying around.

4. Although people tell you to make friends with your custodians, sometimes, it just doesn’t work out that way.... Try as I might, I have had two directors of maintenance that just didn’t like the way we did business. Do we have some ownership in that? I’m sure we did. However, a large part of our problems stemmed from our directors of maintenance feeling threatened by us. We shared space with them. We wanted the space for instructional purposes. They wanted to store old boxes of dairy queen salad trays. They couldn’t imagine why that annoyed us. Many of you will come into situation where you’re sharing space. Maybe a coach will carry mats into your lab. Perhaps you’ll find the arches for prom stored above your classroom. I don’t have good advice for you...just do your best to survive and be a good neighbor, but don’t be a doormat either. We persisted here, and the salad tray boxes are now gone.

5. Use your resources. We have a local hospital. We put the “vibe” out that we’d be interested in their old furniture if they ever remodeled. When they renovated their lab (getting rid of 10 year old furniture), we were ready to take it. We stored it on a semi trailer and installed it the following summer. We positioned ourselves to take hundreds of cubic feet of cabinet space...and we got it for free. Maybe there’s a business in your community that will do the same? Build your network and be ready to pounce when the opportunity comes.

Grace Weber and Grace Spires at OSF St. James John W. Albrecht Medical Center helping load out lab furniture. 

6. Organize how you see fit. Some people populate their shelves alphabetically. We organize our stuff by course/topic. You’ll be using it. Do what works for you!

Here you can see some of our cabinets and workstation spaces. A labelmaker can help organize your stuff! 

I could probably write for days about this topic, but I’ll open myself up for questions from you. Please contact me with your questions! 

Submitted by:

Parker Bane
@parkerbane
 pbane@pontiac90.org

Agriscience Teacher

Pontiac Township