Student Teacher Visit: Miss Hack at Pequea Valley High School

Kayla demonstrating propagation by cuttings.

On Friday, I had a great experience visiting one of my cohort members, Ms. Kayla Hack. Pequea Valley has an outstanding agriculture program located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The rich history of agriculture in this community shows through in the students and school staff. I was extremely impressed with the well-manored and courteous attitudes of the Pequea Valley students. These students have promising futures in any area they wish to pursue.

I am very excited for Kayla’s future students! She is an extremely well rounded teacher that has already began to show levels of mastery in my opinion. Kayla is a great facilitator and the hard work she puts in afterhours comes to life in the classroom. She is extremely dynamic and always knows what questions to ask. Among all these great qualities, the one that strikes me the most is Kayla’s ability to connect with all students. Watching her teach makes it obvious that she has established great classroom rapport. She really knows her students and has done a great job giving them the support they need. It is clear that her cooperating teachers, Mr. Doug Masser and Ms. Jasmine Vansant, have done an outstanding job mentoring her and have built a great program.

Kayla showing her engines class how to gap spark plugs.

As I travel to different schools and agriculture education programs I always look for things I can take and implement in my future program. Pequea Valley really does a great job teaching all areas of agriculture. They do a great job incorporating hands on experiences that range from food science experiments to welding projects. I was very impressed with the program as a whole, and I hope to build a program that is as well rounded as Pequea Valley.