Connecting School and Home Experiences

I chose this subject because it is one of the main reasons I want to be an ag. teacher. My discipline is everywhere and does everything. I can think of countless experiences I've had with agriculture.
 Take today for example: this morning I had breakfast, I dried apples and then put them in a plastic baggie. I put on my makeup and I dressed for class. I came home and did homework using my books and (hopefully soon) I'll go to bed on my cotton sheets. There's not one thing in that list that didn't have to do with agriculture. Even the plastic baggie (plastic has animal by-products in it).

Reflection

1) These experiences have shaped my thoughts on my discipline in many ways. The most powerful way was deciding to become a teacher. I want to teach kids where all their everyday things come from. There are a lot of children who think their milk comes from the store, not a cow. I also want kids to know that agriculture is more than just plows, cows, and sows. It's more than just being a farmer. There's research, extension, food science, dietetics, veterinary science, medicine, I could go on forever. I want to gets excited about agriculture and not necessarily become a part of it, but understand it.

2) Drawing from student's backgrounds with be quite do-able (most of the time). For example. I could ask the students to come up with a list of things they think aren't agriculture. Then, as a class, we'll do a check list to show that the majority of the things they listed are in fact related to agriculture.

I love it when other teachers bring agriculture into their classrooms (I like to bring other subjects into my teaching too). Ag in the Classroom is an amazing program that helps teachers to be successful at bringing in agriculture. For instance, they have cotton bolls they sell (for dirt cheap) to eighth grade social studies teachers to use when they're teaching about the importance of the invention of the cotton gin. For more information click here.