ACES in the Hole

For my first time with students at ACES, I learned so much! Taking students to a leadership is tiring!! With different sessions for students on leadership development, a teacher workshop on ag business, and networking with other teachers, I can confidently say ACES was a success.

Oley Valley FFA brought 17 students from freshmen to seniors for the 2020 ACES conference. During meals and on the car rides, I talked with the students about what they enjoyed about the conference. The students in the younger sessions told me about the sessions about making a good first impression. It takes only 7 seconds to make an initial judgement on someone! The older students said their time was well spent on learning more on how to be a good leader.

The teacher workshop on Ag Business, Freezing your Assets, introduced basic business concepts for teachers to use in their ag business classes. I really enjoyed this session and it brought back fond memories of my high school accounting days. Using numbers and having to practice critical thinking was so much fun!

Networking with other teachers and my cohort members was one of my favorite parts of the conference. For anyone who knows me, I can be found talking to pretty much everyone! At ACES this year, I got to talk to Mrs. Miller from Oxford School District. Last summer, I had an internship in the Oxford area. We were able to exchange stories about individuals that we both knew! I also got to meet and talk with some teachers from the Milton Hershey School. Despite living pretty close to Hershey, I never knew how the school worked and provided opportunities for the students. I loved getting to talk to my fellow cohort members about their experiences and exchange some funny stories about our school and students.

Attending ACES 2020 was so much fun! I understand why my students were looking forward to attending ACES for weeks. I hope they can continue to use the information they learned about being a good leader for years to come.