NEWS A Texas Team Ag Ed Publication
December 2015
Are You Making The Most Of Your Chances? Ray Pieniazek, East Central
Howdy! I’m sure your year is speeding by and will continue traveling at a face pace during the holiday season. Congratulations to all of those who represented Texas FFA at the National FFA Convention and did us proud. We have amazing members and advisors and we will continue to prove it nationwide, year after year. Keep up the good work. I continue this month by sharing thoughts and stories from Forty Chances by Howard Buffet relating to daily routines. In the book Buffet states that he encountered many agricultural practices in other countries that he tried to assist or change. For example, the Borlaug Center in Mexico discovered that farmers in that particular country were losing almost two-thirds of the nitrogen being applied due distributing it in the wrong order. After completing a lesson, have you ever wondered if you taught the material in the right order? Did you give the students all the necessary facts before they began or did you share them after the fact so they could solve the problem at hand themselves? Think about this the next time you start a new unit.
In addition Buffett learned that farmers who owned the land they cultivated were more likely to take care of the soil and the acreage than farmers who rent property. Think about this as you teach your classes and as you train teams for this upcoming spring. Let the students take ownership in training teams. My agricultural advocacy team took total ownership of the script writing process and therefore taken ownership of the whole presentation. The excitement they have when I commend them on how well it came out brings a smile to my face. Let your students take charge of setting up practices and helping their fellow teammates learn material. My teams love to encourage each other and share tricks on how they learned certain material. Use the students with experience to help train the new ones and you can bet the team spirit will improve. As I ask each time, “are you making the most of your chances with your students?” Buffet points out that it takes over 500 years to build an inch of soil, but we don’t have that much time to build our students
potential. We only have our student for approximately 180 days or less. We have a short period of time to help build their character, self-esteem and give them opportunities to grow into the leaders of tomorrow. Take advantage of every moment that you have with your students. Don’t miss a chance to let them grow and mature into the future of our great country. I wish you luck as you and all of your students continue into a new year, with new opportunities for student success. Have a great Holiday and enjoy some time with your family.