ACES 2018: A New Perspective on a Classic Conference

Throughout my high school career in FFA, I attended nearly EVERY leadership conference that I could. I always loved the workshops, met a lot of super cool people, and made some new friends by the end. Thus, the ACES Conference (Agricultural Cooperation Establishes Success) was a leadership event that I attended all four years during high school. Because of this, I was incredibly excited to attend as a teacher with my cooperating center to see how it was different and what teachers did while their students attended to their own workshop agenda.

I really had a fantastic time hanging out and meeting other agriculture teachers, as well as the quality time I had with me students. But, I am going to highlight a few of my experiences while there.

1). Teacher Professional Development

I have always been the type of educator who believes extensively in professional development. This is how we stay up-to-date and relevant with changing technology and information about agriculture, where we learn new ways to teach material, and where we can gather actual teaching materials and resources to use in the future. Thus, at the ACES conference, agriculture teachers were given an awesome PD experience through the Chesapeake Bay Foundation about their programs that can closely be aligned and integrated into agriculture education, and how to conduct a stream study through water quality testing. It was great to make contacts with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to use in the future and also go through this PD event with other agriculture teachers as a way to network and get to know my colleagues. Some pictures are below.

In the picture above, we became familiar with how the bay is

graded for health based on pH, DO, nitrates, phosphates, etc.

Here we had a chance to actually do water quality testing

on different stream samples

2). FFA Courtesy Corps

This was my very first time helping with the FFA Courtesy Corps as an agriculture teacher. It is a program where teacher help with student management in the hotel after curfew. We are guests in the hotel and it is important to make sure that the students represent themselves, their school, and the FFA with pride and distinction. As a result, after curfew has passed and students are to be in their rooms and quite, teachers split up among the floor to monitor the halls. If a student leaves their room, has the TV on too loud, or if they are talking/laughing too loud, the teacher will intervene. This is make sure that other guests in the hotel who are non-FFA are not disturbed and ensures that students are being respectful to each other and the hotel. It was really neat to help with this because it is something that I believe all teachers should volunteer for at one time or another. If everyone helps out from time-to-time, everyone can benefit as well.

Overall, ACES was everything I hoped it to be as a teacher and more. It is crazy to think that in a year from now I will hopefully be attending this conference with my own students!