I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Alpelance, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.
We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Hey, Alpelance fans. It's Mike, hereby the Alpelance with Brian and Becky. I would just like to point out that Mike calls them fans, and you and I, Brian call them listeners because we know better.
How do you know you know better? Mike has fans. We're 10 seconds into season 10 and we're already off the rails. Pretty much on the course.
As you say, that is a feature or not. And that's why we keep Brian in charge of everything. So, no, welcome everyone. It's season 10 and we're excited to get back into the swing of things with our Alpelance podcasts and thanks for joining us.
We're going to spend just a few minutes as we kick off the season talking a little bit about what's upcoming and what we're looking forward to sharing with you throughout the next academic year when it comes to research and hot topics that are really happening within our profession. So, season 10, what's the 10th anniversary? Is it like paper or wood or? I feel like you should have looked this up before we started.
I should have looked this up. But not the silver anniversary of the gold anniversary. I'm looking. I'm going to find it.
The Google machine. So, we're going to, it's 10 years. That is awesome. 10 seasons doing this.
And so, very, very excited about what we got going on here. And not that anyone's counting, but we're well into the 200s when it comes to podcasts that we posted and probably hit over the 250 mark this year. Google's really confused because the color associated with 10 years is silver, but it's 10 or aluminum because everyone else that by your 10, you're not affording silver. So, but, but listen, listen.
Like aluminum foil. Like a look. Stabilizing strength and resilience. Yeah.
There you go. For what this season has brought in terms of in terms of guests and topics and think like there could not be a more perfect symbol for season 10. I think I have aluminum cans. I'm thinking like 10 foil hats.
Because of the worst. I'm talking. So, we're just going to talk about a few of the themes that you're going to hear throughout this year and also just provide a little bit of an introduction to the series that we have that Becky has kind of led for us throughout season 10 and Brian and I have kind of been involved with as well. And so, looking forward to just having a quick conversation about that.
But Becky's right. When we start thinking about kind of some of the themes that we are going to hear and see over the year, it's really about education. It's about the people. It's about kind of the process and strategies around education.
And, you know, we do get caught up talking about content from time to time, but it was really more about pedagogy and content and even the why. Why do we do what we do and what is our why or certainly some important elements and pieces that we have throughout this upcoming season? Yeah. I think the word that has really risen to the surface for me when we think about season 10 is intention.
And I think it would be really easy to scroll through the episodes and look ahead at season 10 and say, oh, season 10 is all about AgMac. It's all about VR. It's all about professional development. And yeah, we talk about some of those things.
But I think one of the comments that I've really appreciated our guests bringing in is the intentionality piece. And I think where I'm really excited about this season is the opportunity to reflect with each episode and really think about how whatever that content is, the message of the episode is about more than that thing. Like, that thing is a mechanism to deliver something so much bigger. And I think there are so many opportunities in season 10 to really think about what we're teaching beyond the content and the skill.
Yeah, I think with this too, it's really exciting to look at the people who joined us this year to talk about their research and their work and the dedication that they brought to each one of these things. And I hope that as we get through the season, everyone has seen how this is really a team sport. The teachers in the middle school of high school classroom, as the teacher educators at the universities, it's the state staff, it's the Department of Ed folks all working together for that same goal, but everybody can kind of see it from their own perspective. And hopefully as you go through these topics, like you're talking about Becky, we each take a moment to kind of pause and think about our own practice, why we do the things that we do and making sure that we are continuing to grow and as they sharpen our own soul and to become better teachers.
Brian nails it because he's talking about the meta of what we were really talking about throughout the entire season because we were talking about reflection, we were talking about transfer of learning and just the whole, what excited me about the whole season was just the student learning and human learning in general and how we go about making that happen in our classrooms. And it's not necessarily the content provided us the context, but it was certainly more than that and applicable much broader than just the content. I think my story talked about kind of structures and strategies throughout this season, but I think a common message that just is really invigorating for me is thinking about how do we use those available structures to build something awesome. And I think it's back to that kind of intentionality.
It's not I hear the structure and I take it and I put it on top of what's already there and I just keep kind of stacking up my structure. It's really thinking about, you know, how do I kind of revolutionize? How do I think about really what I'm doing and what I'm building toward and what can be what's going to be really awesome about this particular thing? I think to that point, probably another theme that we've talked about is the individualized nature of what our local programs can be.
Not all programs are created equal, what we do in our classrooms, what we do locally and how we measure and define or should measure and define success looks a little bit differently. And there's not necessarily this one size fits all when it comes to AGEd programs and just trying to wrap our minds around that given one another grace and figuring out how we talked about systems and systematic structures, how we change our internal mental structures around that, but how we changed maybe some of the systematic structures around AGEd and FFA and SAE that help us get away from this ideal of what it should be, even though what we think it ought to be doesn't necessarily fit who we are or our local programs. Which probably gives us an opportunity to preview the series real briefly when we think about our series and there will be a separate intro for the series because there's a lot to dig in on this series, but the series is focused on this idea of those concerned with teacher retention. So there's a series of nine letters and scenarios that we kind of get to dig into that really do help us kind of process.
I think some of these ideas that help us rethink things. We'll talk in the intro to that series specifically about how you'll even hear us in our conversations, not only disagreeing with each other, but disagreeing with ourselves in some cases, even within an episode, and that's just across episodes because we're going to talk about some tough things in that series. And I think for that very reason, and that was a great transition that one of our challenges, perhaps my colleagues will agree, but I will place the challenge that we really would challenge you to be more active in your engagement with this content this season. The letters, the conversations that we have, we've only had time to kind of just react to them.
And I think there's lots of different angles and perspectives that can be brought to the discussion and an opportunity for a lot of ideas and generation around and having those conversations that help make sense out of that and help move that the profession ahead with the conversations that are going to be right in front of us. And that's really the whole purpose of this podcast is, yeah, I really enjoy hanging out with you guys to talk about these things, but our hope is to engage in conversation. That number one, we hope people listen and then we'll take and talk about this with their fellow teachers, but also the guests that we have on that are sharing their own information, reach out to them. Everybody across this country involved in school-based ag is just an email away.
Send them an email, ask them for some more information, share your own thoughts about their topic and engage in that conversation and really build out that network. And I think it was one of the things that I saw as we look over this whole season is we need connection and we need to support each other because too often we try, even when we say we don't, we try to do too much of this ourselves and we need to reach out for folks that can help us and support us each of the aspects of our job. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're a student teacher, a pre-service teacher, a first-year teacher, a 30-year career teacher. You're a 16-year-old dinosaur.
Yes. That is a preview Easter egg right there. Please reach out. The people that we have on are great people.
They would love the opportunity to hear from you all and engage in brainstorm and help continue that conversation. And so a great invitation, great opportunity to really engage and build those relationships that are going to help make your career even better. Yeah. I think really, really, really, how to be visible is a big piece of that.
Like certainly, yeah, definitely certainly have the conversation, but really think about like, what's that email I'm going to send? What's that letter I'm going to? Who am I going to visibly engage with some of the things that I'm processing as I work through this season? Season 10.
Season 10. It was supposed to be, whoo-hoo-hoo. That's going to be a hoot. That's what we need on the Soundboard.
But we're super excited for Season 10. We're looking forward to the conversations and really looking forward to engage with you all, not only in the podcast, but socially through social media and wherever we may find you if it's at NLAE Conference or a state of Ag Teachers Association conference, please let us know and help us continue the conversation because this is a discipline that we're passionate about. We know that if you're listening to this, you have a level of passion and enthusiasm as well. Maybe you're listening to this?
Might need some allergies there? There are counselors available. But again, thanks for joining us. We look forward to the conversation and have a great academic year from Mike Becky Bryan here by The Alpellot.
Have a great academic year. Hoot hoot. You hope you've enjoyed this episode of Alpellot. Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our gifts.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Bryan here by The Alpellot saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Alpellot's Tips for Egg Teachers.