Aukamp's Analysis! Loving Lampeter-Strasburg

Student teaching at Lampeter-Strasburg has opened my eyes to the world of FFA. I was not part of a strong FFA program and in fact did not even hear of an SAE until I came to PSU. I went into student teaching like a sponge in a sink of water, I just could not wait to soak up the knowledge.

My experiences with FFA have ranged from monthly meetings, community events, conferences, CDEs on the regional level, record book contests on the regional and state level, proficiency award judging, and school based contests.  Every year the FFA chapter makes breakfast for local farmers. We arrived at school early at 5:30 am to prepare breakfast. Now, most high school students would never voluntarily wake up at that hour of the morning! But, this FFA chapter has some extraordinary kids and they were all bright and chipper and rearing to make breakfast. We served breakfast to 60 people from 7-9am in the high school cafeteria. It was great to see the local community workers come and support the FFA, many of whom attended L-S and were in FFA. After breakfast, we invited the locals back to the Vet Science room to peruse through old scrapbooks from years gone by. It was a wonderful morning!

Another memory I have of FFA is more recent. Just last week Mr. Smith and Mr. Herman (a student teacher from the University of Delaware) headed up our school’s Ag Mechanics Contest. It was open to grades 9-11 and students did not have to be FFA members to compete. Ten boys showed up last Thursday, April 11, from 6:30-9 pm where they participated in individual and team events. I was impressed to see the students work together to construct a “jig” in a brief amount of time, given their skill level. Some of the participants are just learning about agriculture mechanics and have only taken one class. It was neat to see how interested they were in the material that they would come for the experience and not for the winning aspect of the event.

I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to student teach at L-S. I have enjoyed teaching in the classroom and being involved in the numerous FFA activities over the past few months. I hope I will be able to have as active an FFA as they have at L-S, someday in my program. 

To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of student across the glob by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter @TeachAgPSU, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PSUTeachAg.

Submitted by:

Jamie Aukamp

@jla322

2013 Student Teacher

Lampeter-Strasburg High School