History in the Making: Hannah's Ag Story: What drives you?

What gets you out of bed in the morning? I'm not talking about your alarm that wakes you from your slumber. I mean what gets your butt out of those warm covers and crevice you've created? What motivates you to fix your bed head, brush your teeth, and get out of your hobo at home clothes?

For most college students, in their senior year like I am, it's a grade to pass a class. I, however, consider myself an exception to that stereotype. I get out of bed for 4 main reasons: students, agriculture, horses and now cows. Only within the last week, have cows been added to the list of reasons I jump out of my bed.

First, the students. I get out of bed in the morning so I can be a teacher or do something to support my teaching done at Juniata Valley High School. Whether it be lessons, professional development, grading, or most importantly teaching 5 days a week, I strive to make my teaching the best it can be at the current time. I still have so many years before I begin to prefect my teaching regime, however, everyday I am getting just a little better with everyday teaching. At this point I know my classes well and know what to expect. I know what works well with some classes and not so well with others. All of this I have found out through trial and error.

My favorite lessons are the ones that I can make hands on in some way. For example, welding with crackers and peanut butter. It was good to go over different welding positions and joints with the students. However, it was great to give them crackers and have them practice the joints and welding positions with a partner. It was fun, reviewed the material, and got a little food in everyone belly.

Second, agriculture. I have found a strong advocate for agriculture inside of myself that I didn't always know was there. I believe it is one thing to teach agriculture everyday, and another thing to live and advocate for agriculture every day. My middle school students helped me realize how much I loved agriculture as a whole when we talked through the FFA creed. We popcorn read around the room and then went through each paragraph and broke down some of the difficult sections. We stopped at the second paragraph to discuss inborn fondness and the equivalent word we used was a passion. As I talked to the students through examples of inborn fondness that they could relate to I realized that agriculture was one of my passions.

I also had this feeling when I saw a PETA advertisement on the internet. The advertisement was picture of a man holding a bloody sheep and it said "Here's the rest of your wool coat." This upset me very much because the part of the public that doesn't know about sheep sheering won't understand the sheep doesn't actually look like that when they are shorn properly. It was such a powerful advertisement but gave off such an uneducated message that will in turn give agriculture a bad name. I saw this advertisement on Facebook and thought about sharing it and writing out just how I felt. But, I gave it a minute and decided that I was just going to educate people for the next 40 years of my life. I know that the education is the best way to combat incorrect adds such as that one.

Horses have been a life long passion of mine. Within 5 minutes of meeting me people tend to pick up on my love of horses. The reason I took my very first agriculture class in high school was because I loved horses and I could learn more about them there.

My most recent addition to the reasons I get out of bed is dairy cows. Last Thursday I did an 2 SAE visits. The second SAE visit was to a dairy farm and every since them I have been extremely interested in the dairy industry. My blog to follow will be about my entire experience there.

Thank you for reading and here are some additional pictures from the week!