Show What You Know

On Tuesday, we traveled to Liberty for the dairy judging cde. I was very excited to take students on this trip as in high school it was my favorite cde to compete in and loved a day out of school in the barn. Another lesson like last week, this is not what most of my students considered fun. They went and were well behaved and did seem to try hard though! This was very rewarding as I did feel trying to teach this information in such a short amount of was so difficult and I was so worried about how well they actually caught on. During the competition, I was able to see my students really trying to use their knowledge and I was so surprised and happy about the questions they were asking me. 

One of my favorite moments was, one of my students who has never been around livestock was having a very hard time with the smell. He actually spent all day covering his nose with his shirt. As we arrived at the second farm he was refusing to get off the bus. As his peers headed into the barn I got on the bus and he says, "Miss Ostrander this is gross and I refuse." He did say this with a slight joking manner. I reassured him first that this one would probably smell a little better since it was smaller but also that sitting on the bus would not be helping him test his classroom knowledge. After thinking a minute he looked at me and says, "I'm still refusing but ill go just because we did spend time learning this." After lunch, he came back up to me and says. "lunch at least made up for the smell." I definitely laughed at this and it made me realize how much agriculture classrooms and agriculture in general has changed from rough around the edges farm boys to anything and everything else.