ACES

Fun and tiring!

Honesdale was able to take 2 van fulls of students down to Harrisburg for the weekend in order to attend ACES! Most of the students had never been to ACES because of Covid and the craziness of the last few years so it was exciting to see their excitement but also hesitant. Which after the first few hours was all good and they were just happy to be part of the club. 

I was lucky enough to attend National Convention with Honesdale in the fall, but this time I was able to see what it looked like to just take students away for an overnight stay, but also what more students with an extra chaperone looked like. 

Before we even left in the morning, we discovered one of  our dear students simply did not know he had to wear official dress… to be fair the past few years events and trips and lacked and he was not asked to wear official dress for a while but still *insert facepalm*. Good news though like any good ag teacher my CT has extra jackets, ties, scarves, shoes in the office for occasions such as this. The only thing, that was not found was a pair of black pants but during lunch there was a quick run to JCPenney’s and pants were found. 

During the actual conference, it was fun for me to watch the seniors and officers help encourage other students to get out of their comfort zone and meet new people. By the first time at dinner, all the students were excited to tell me about all of the people they meet from all across the state and some of the girls could not wait to tell about their new found mullet crushes they saw across the room *insert another facepalm*. But in all serious it was great to get student back out to events and making connections. 

While at ACES, I also attend some PD on ag business and go to working on placing our strawberry orders which was nice to catch up those things. Students also enjoyed the workshop, events, and the dance. 

Thankfully, we were blessed to have well behaved students, which was not the case for everyone. But going into my teaching career, has me thinking about what students go on what trips what happens when students misbehave? How can I set high expectations doing into the trip to avoid as many issues as possible? In several cases, student’s parent came and picked them up which made sense if they lived a hour or so away or close, but what happens if you have a major issue when you are National Convention in Indiana, how would that look different?

Overall, ACES was successful the students has great time and definitely was a good experience me and gave me a lot to think about and discuss when I have to plan trips!