Friday, March 6, 2015

The Student Becomes the Teacher

Recently I had the unique experience of doing my first Supervised Agricultural Experience, or SAE, visit with one of my students as their student teacher.  I stopped by Mrs. Pontius' house, my cooperating teacher, one day after school to see one of our students working during his placement SAE working on the dairy farm.

It was such a neat experience to see one of my students, who is usually shy, working hard in his own element.  A student who is usually quiet in my classes was buzzing around the barn just doing his thing.

I stood back, just watching and observing for awhile as he brought in the cows and put the milkers on and fed the cows.  And then he turned to me and said, "Your turn!"

I may be an agriculture student but I'm no dairy farmer.  I had never milked a cow in my life!  His response, "Nows a good a time as any!"  Good point, my friend...

So I grabbed ahold of the milker and gave him a blank stare.  I had know idea what to do.

But my student was great!  He gave an excellent explanation of which button does what, which teat to hook up first, how to clean the cows, everything that I could have wanted to know.  I helped to finish the milking, feed the calves, and put down the hay for the cows and heifers.  I was so proud of this student!

We took a look at his record books, however, and they simply did not reflect all of the hard work he was putting in at the farm.  I hope to help this student continue to improve his financial records and journal entries for his SAE before the time I leave Greenwood.  I know that he is so capable!

It was just a fun experience overall!  The student teacher went to see the student at the cooperating teacher's farm where the student is the employee.  The student then became the teacher to the student teacher while the other teacher supervised the teaching that the student was doing for the student teacher.  Needless to say that by the end of the night, it was hard to say just who was teaching who what, but I know that I learned so much during my first SAE visit!

1 comment: