A Shot of AG
Jessica Chipman | Ag Teacher and FFA Advisor
Season 6 Episode 8 | 26m 54sVideo has Closed Captions
Jessica Chipman is an award-winning High School ag teacher with the FFA.
How do kids learn about the essential work of farming? Often through FFA. Jessica Chipman not only teaches agriculture to high school students at Flanagan-Cornell, she’s won awards for it, being chosen out of 111 Illinois ag teachers to receive the Golden Owl. In this episode of A Shot of Ag, she shares her story with us.
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A Shot of AG is a local public television program presented by WTVP
A Shot of AG
Jessica Chipman | Ag Teacher and FFA Advisor
Season 6 Episode 8 | 26m 54sVideo has Closed Captions
How do kids learn about the essential work of farming? Often through FFA. Jessica Chipman not only teaches agriculture to high school students at Flanagan-Cornell, she’s won awards for it, being chosen out of 111 Illinois ag teachers to receive the Golden Owl. In this episode of A Shot of Ag, she shares her story with us.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(upbeat music) - Welcome to "A shot of Ag".
My name is Rob Sharkey.
I'm your host.
I'm also a farmer.
Agriculture is one of the most important things in this entire world, but how do you learn about it?
Well, you know, I grew up on a farm, but what if you didn't?
What if you want to go into other things in agriculture, how do you start to learn?
Well, ag teaching, FFA, that's a good start.
Today, we're gonna talk with Jessica Chipman from Pontiac.
How you doing?
- I'm good.
How are you?
- You are a, what do you call yourself?
Are you an ag teacher or an FFA advisor?
- It depends on the time of the day that you ask me.
So, I would say from 07:30 to 03:30 an ag teacher, Usually, from 03:30, so who knows when depending on the day, FFA advisor.
- So, you're a regular teacher in school?
- Yep.
- And you're teaching ag and then it's like, if the ag kids were a team, you would be the coach?
- Exactly.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and even then sometimes like during lunch or we have like a study hall period, I become FFA advisor.
We do practices, we do meetings.
I teach at a really small school.
And so, trying to find time in the day for them to be able to do stuff is hard, 'cause they're involved in a lot of other things.
- What school?
- Flanagan-Cornell High School.
- Oh, go.
What are they?
- Falcons.
- Go the Falcons.
- Go Falcons.
Yeah.
- That's kind of a generic mascot.
- It is generic, yes.
- Yeah.
- But we're big on Falcon pride.
That's like our motto, is Falcon pride so.
- How big a school?
- We have 107 kids in the high school.
- So, fairly small.
- So small.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
How many kids are in FFA?
- Oh, we're at 79.
So, we're sitting at right around 75.
- No, hold up.
Hold up.
You're at over, I don't wanna do math, but you're over 70% of the kids are in FFA?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- All right.
Well done.
- Yeah.
- [Rob] How do you do that?
- I would say success breeds success.
So, we've been fortunate enough to like do very well in the FFA world, but our classes are very hands-on and we're a small school so there's not a lot of elective options.
But once we get the kids, very rarely do they not take a class the next year.
- Gotcha.
So, you get your hooks into 'em there.
- Yep, very much so.
- What do you think the draw is?
Because not all those can be farm kids.
- No, they're not.
Actually, very few of them are come from a production background, and so, I think it's the hands-on aspect.
Some of our classes too, like we have an ag science class that counts as a science credit.
- Yeah.
- So maybe, if you don't wanna take biology or chemistry, you can take ag science.
- Oh.
- You get to eat food in a lot of our classes.
So, that's a draw.
- Yeah.
- Exactly.
And mechanics, like I teach an agricultural mechanics classes, which I'm actually, expanding into next year.
And you know, they get to like have a tangible thing that they can do.
In horticulture, we work in the greenhouse and so, it's a lot of different things that's not just sitting in a desk every day.
- Okay.
Let's back up.
- Yeah.
- Where'd you get your love for teaching ag from?
- I have always like been involved in agriculture.
I grew up on a family grain operation and then showed cattle too.
So, it's been instilled in me.
But then my freshman year of high school, our county does an ag expo and they invite FFA students to go help present at that.
And so, once I did that, I was kind of hooked.
I remember where I was at my freshman year of high school walking in the shop the day after and been like, I think this is what I want to do.
- Really?
- And so yeah, I actually, was a teacher assistant my senior year of high school with the intro to ag class.
Like my ag teacher helped me or allowed me to help teach the class.
And so, yeah, I guess from then on I kind of knew.
I went into college thinking I was gonna do ag in the classroom and I had a college professor say like, you know, "I think you should consider the high school classroom."
So, I switched my majors.
I did some early observation.
I had a great student teaching site.
And so, here I am 14 years later.
- Where'd you go to college?
- I went to U of I, double I and I, - Generally, people that go to U of I mention it within the first 15 seconds of talking to you.
- Yeah.
Proud alum.
Yep, ILL, love that school.
- Yeah.
Almost as good as Southern, but hey.
- I don't know.
- But you went into U of I with the mindset that you were gonna come out a teacher anyway.
- In a way.
Yeah, or thought I was gonna work for farm bureau or do something.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
And knew was gonna do agriculture and something with people and hopefully, kids.
- So, what was your major?
- When I started it was ag education leadership.
And then I switched to ag education teacher licensure.
- That's pretty specific.
- Yes.
- I didn't know they were that specific.
- Yes, yes, yes.
So, like in the college right now it's called ALEC.
It's just education and communications.
It's just that like specific department.
- Gotcha.
- Yeah.
- So, you get a degree, then what happens?
- So, I get a degree.
I didn't have a job when I graduated, the day I graduated, which I thought was the end of the world at the time.
- Yeah, right.
- I had done an interview close to home and didn't get that job and thought life was over.
- [Rob] Because you just weren't that good?
- Well, that's what I thought at the time.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- But everything happens for a reason.
- They kind of reinforced it by not hiring you though.
- They did.
They did.
Absolutely.
But everything happens for a reason.
And so, then I got a job at Ridgeview in Colfax, Illinois.
And I taught there for three years before my high school ag teacher retired.
And then I decided to move back home.
- So, you went back home?
- I went back home.
But I'm so glad I taught somewhere before I went back home.
- Why is that?
- I kind of figured out like what worked for me, what didn't work for me, kind of who I was as a teacher.
But also a lot of the kids that I had, even my first year teaching back at Flanagan, I babysat those kids.
I had cousins.
- Oh, little brats.
- So it was, yeah, it was some of those things that you're kind of like, you know, figuring out management style, behavior style like how did you wanna handle that?
So, we still had our moments.
- The person that retired, was that your ag teacher?
- He was, yeah, Dan Faber.
He taught at Flanagan for 28 years so.
- Did he cold quit or did he is like, "Hey, if you need any advice or something?
- No, but he saw, oh no, he definitely stuck around.
He actually, is on our school board now at school.
- Oh, okay.
- And so, he's is still on the alumni and helps quite a bit, but yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard for him just to walk away.
- Is it hard to be a teacher right out of college?
I mean, do you feel like maybe the respect's not there yet?
- It is hard.
I mean, you're only three or four years older than your seniors in class.
So, depending on the relationship they maybe had with a former teacher or whatever, there is definitely, you know, everybody says don't smile the first semester of teaching.
I don't think I agree with that.
- Really?
- That's what a lot of like old school teachers would say is don't smile at them the first year.
- Do they call you Mrs. Chipman?
- Well, at the time it was Ms. Collins, but yeah.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Because some of these schools are going to first names, and I think that's odd.
- Yeah, no, I had a superintendent that even like our basketball coach, you know, a lot of people just call him by his last name and things like that.
- Yeah.
- Our superintendent like would correct the kids in the hallway.
And it is like, it is Mr. Yoder, not just Yoder so.
- Unless it's a Coach Yoder.
- Yeah.
- I think that's acceptable.
- Yeah.
- And I don't know, ag teacher Chipman, I don't know.
It doesn't really work.
- I recall that sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
- Okay.
So, you're back at your hometown and that was a goal?
- I guess it was never a goal, but I mean it was always like the hope.
I always wanted to stay close to home with our family farming operation.
I didn't wanna get too far.
And so, yeah, it was nice to come home.
I think when I started teaching though, it was kind of like, I don't know if this will happen.
I don't know if our community was gonna allow, you know, like a female teacher to come back in.
But now we have two so times have changed.
- You have two ag teachers?
- We have two teachers, yeah.
- Really in a school that small?
- I mean when three quarters of your kids are in it.
- Yep.
We just finished year four with a second teacher.
But yeah, we had a demand.
I couldn't teach all day.
I couldn't teach all the classes that we needed to offer so.
- Were you the first chick?
Yeah.
Ag teacher that come in?
I'm struggling to remember, 'cause I'm old, but I don't remember a female ag teacher.
I know there's quite a few now.
- Yeah.
- What do you think the percentage is?
- I mean we have statistics for the state, but off the top of my head I would guess it's probably 60% female and 40% male.
- So, that's quite a change.
- Yeah.
Especially, the younger teachers coming in.
Predominantly more females than male.
- Okay.
Well, I guess times are changing.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Tell me about the three circle model.
- Yeah, so the three circle model is kind of the model we try to follow for ag education.
It's classroom instruction, FFA, and then supervised agricultural experiences, or SAEs, or record books as we like to call them.
- Yeah.
- And so hopefully, all three of those things are happening.
And that like, spot in the middle is that like sweet spot of combining everything together.
So, it's not just teaching in the classroom.
It's not just doing FFA stuff.
It's not just doing record books, which I feel like is maybe sometimes the circle that gets kind of put to the back burner.
At our school it's not, that's one of my big things.
It's one of our successes I would say at our school.
But, you know, having all three of those things, when a kid leaves an ag class, if they've kind of done all three of those circles, they'll have experiences that they can use in life no matter what they go into, agriculture or not agriculture, but they'll have the life skills, the soft skills, those kinds of things.
- Okay.
The SAE, the projects that are done amazes me.
You know, we've interview people in ag all the time.
People that have made businesses.
- Absolutely.
- I mean literally they've been doing it for 20 years.
They made a career out of something they started in FFA.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
We have kids doing a lot of different projects, but like a former student of mine, his mom started her project in high school and now it's become this huge greenhouse operation.
I have, you know, some of my students that have like, one student makes cake pops and she's like.
- What?
- Cake pops?
- You know, at Starbucks,- - Cake pops.
- you can get like the cake pop with the cake and the frosting around it.
That's her project, and she makes a killing off of it.
She makes 'em for birthday parties, graduations, showers, all that.
- Those are delicious.
- They're delicious.
- Yeah.
- It's a great to be a teacher.
- Are hers good?
- They're amazing.
Yeah.
- Well, you kind of have to say that.
- No, they're amazing.
I'm the taste tester.
Like you wanna try a new flavor, bring it on in.
- FFA used to be Future Farmers of America.
Farmers are maybe down to 1%, probably less of the population.
So, you're not gonna have that many.
What in your words is FFA today?
- Well, if you ask National FFA, it's the National FFA organization, but I would say it's a group of students who want to know more about agriculture as a whole.
You know, and it's not just cows, sows, and plows anymore, is the common phrase.
It's food scientists, it's natural resources, it's environmental, it's, you know, power, structural, technical, mechanical trades.
All of that is kind of works in the FFA world.
And there's contests that do all of those things to expose kids to those different careers.
- Yeah.
What is this azalea?
I don't know my plants.
- This is an umbrella plant.
- An umbrella plant?
- Yes.
- Is that native to Illinois?
- I'm guessing?
- Probably not.
- I'm guessing not.
- No.
It's more of a house plant.
I actually, like got it from a student.
She has a house plant collection.
And so, she brought me in a start and this sits in my classroom.
So, horticulture is like one of my passions.
I love being in the greenhouse.
I love plants so.
- A house plant collection.
How many does she have?
- I mean, her bedroom is full of them.
- [Rob] Oh, okay.
- And her mom has a little greenhouse outside.
So they kind of, it's a family thing.
- Gotcha.
- Yeah.
- So, I mean this sits in your classroom Also kind of a reminder to the other kids of, you know, think outside the box, 'cause you're right that it was.
It was cows, sows, and plows, but now it's, my gosh, you can, I mean, make money off of anything, if you've got the gumption for it.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we can get creative, you know, like if a kid has an interest doing certain things.
We have a student who makes soap, you know, like goat soap and things like that.
And so, yeah, if you have a fat passion, we can somehow probably relate it to agriculture in some way shape or form.
- He makes goat soap, like they did on "Fight Club."
- No, not like that.
- Not that?
- No.
- Out of the milk.
- Yeah.
There you go.
- Okay.
- There you go.
- Well, I mean, you gotta be, you gotta make this stuff clear.
- Yeah.
Okay.
- Yeah.
You just got back from the state convention.
- State convention, yeah.
- Okay.
And that's in Springfield.
- Springfield, yep.
And they hit a record this year.
There was over 7,300 people there.
- My gosh.
- This week.
- Where do they have it?
- It's at the Bank of Springfield Center in downtown Springfield.
- All right, I'll take your word for it.
Do you go out to the national one?
- We do, yeah.
- Is that in Indianapolis?
- Indianapolis, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yep.
- Used to be in Kansas City.
- Yeah, and when I went it was in Louisville.
- Oh, okay.
Is that a good thing for a high school kid to go to?
- Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when we go, they have this giant career expo.
So, lots of businesses, lots of colleges to see that they probably wouldn't be exposed to anywhere else, but we also do tours and then the sessions.
There's great keynote speakers.
But yeah, it's a great experience.
I mean, just to expose them to the FFA side of things, but also just to get them out and see different things.
- Yeah.
I don't remember ever being asked to speak there.
- Yeah.
No.
- No.
- I'll add you to the list.
- No.
- I'll give a recommendation.
- Well, that would be nice.
- Yeah.
- I mean, you got Mike Rowe.
- Yeah.
- A lot of people say, I'm the Mike Rowe of Central Illinois.
- And there you go.
I'll send the rec.
Temple Grandin spoke last year.
She was pretty good.
- Yeah, nobody's ever said that, by the way.
If you wanna say it.
I mean, you could email WTVP and tell 'em that.
That'd be cool.
- There you go, Lynette.
- The next micro.
- Temple Grandin, that would be, I've never heard.
You know, funny story, not to hijack your interview.
- No, you're good.
- But I was in a airport, we were speaking up in Montreal and I'm going to an airport and she's sitting right there by herself looking at her phone.
And I was like, oh my gosh, that's Temple Grandin.
I was gonna go say hi, but I chickened out.
I just didn't do it, because you know, you don't wanna bother people.
- Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've actually heard her spoke twice.
- Yeah.
- I'm, yeah.
Fascinated by her story and what she's done.
- Yeah.
So, the second time we could've had.
Irregardless.
(Rob and Jessica chuckling) I've talked to a lot of FFA advisors and one thing I am pretty confident on is that you all spend a extreme amount of time with your students and that.
I mean, I know teachers and then you got like the coaches and that, but it seems like the most hours put in it's a FFA teacher.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a lot.
It's, you know, like you said, like a coach in a sport, right?
Well, our sport's pretty much 12 months a year, if somebody wants to argue 11 okay.
But yeah, I mean, we're doing stuff all the time.
And so when, you know, everyone thinks, oh, the teachers have their summers off.
Well, that's not very true for an ag teacher.
We have a little time off, but you have to make that time.
- Not much, 'cause you have so many competitions.
Everything from parliamentary procedure to the, like the SAAE, I mean everything.
It seems like there's just one after another.
- Yeah.
- And not only do you have to like do it, you have to be on the ball to have your kids ready for it.
- And yeah, and you have to be an expert in so many things.
That's the hard part.
You know, like, I'm not a poultry person.
I don't like chickens.
And so, like trying to.
- Why not?
- I just think they're dirty birds.
I'm not a poultry person.
- I like that Chick-fil-A though.
- I do too.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
I like to eat chicken.
I just don't like to work with chickens.
So yeah, you have to be an expert in so many different things.
You know, you go from soils to public speaking to poultry to dairy judging.
I mean, it's, yeah, it can be a lot.
- Every chapter has its thing that they're good at.
What's yours?
- Proficiency awards.
- And what is that?
- So that's like your record books.
Like competing with their SAEs.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah.
- Do y'all get like fired up?
Do you have to give like inspirational speeches for your record keeping?
- I don't know if I would say it's inspirational speeches.
It's more like yelling at them to get caught up and get their record books done.
Yeah.
But it gets done.
- Sounds aggressive.
- Well, sometimes I demand.
- Sometimes the firm hand has to come down.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
That it brings up a good question.
Are these kids, are they brats?
I mean, do you have to like smack 'em around to get 'em to pay attention?
- No.
- No.
- Not usually.
No.
- Which student do you like the least?
(Jessica laughing) - Depends on the day.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
I usually, I really do have really good students though.
- Somebody came to mind though.
- Depending on the day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
- I think they probably know who they are.
- Maybe.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- What is relationships over vigor?
What does that mean?
- Yeah, yeah.
Really, I'm a big person on like building those relationships.
So, I don't have usually my least favorite student, because I have put relationships first and tried to build that rapport with kids.
- Yeah.
- So, I don't teach the first week, like I don't teach content.
Like we do get to know you games, we do leadership building games, personality tests, 'cause I wanna know who they are as individuals before I like teach them.
So, I wanna know how they learn best.
I wanna know if they like to work with people or if they don't like to work with people.
And so, I believe in making relationships with my kids.
And then you gain their respect pretty easily.
- I would think that a lot of teachers, you know, kind of look at that moment where like, oh, there's a kid that I'm gonna make a difference in their life, right?
The kid is probably, he's either a jerk or everybody thinks he's not smart.
But you know, you were able to draw something outta that.
Have you had those moments?
- Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a lot of times the kids, you know, maybe a student in the special education department that's not normally in ag class, but they come and take an ag class, 'cause it's hands-on.
So, you know, and you see them, you know, cut with a saw for the first time and they're terrified, but then they can do it.
And then at the end of it, they make this perfect project that they can take home and be so proud of themselves.
Yeah.
Those are the moments where it's super cool.
- Hypothetically, if you walked into the workshop and you found your students were having drag races with the belt sanders, what would the punishment be?
- They probably wouldn't be in my class anymore.
- Oh, they' get booted out?
- Yeah.
- No, like detention or something.
That's an automatic.
- No definitely.
It would be more than a detention.
Maybe a week of detentions, but yeah.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- It's good to know.
- Kids they know not to mess in my.
- It's good to know.
- Yeah.
Power tools are, yeah.
- Yeah.
- It's not funny at all.
- No, no it's not.
I mean they can really go though.
You ever done that?
- No.
- Me neither.
- You sound like you're speaking from experience.
- It's a lot of fun.
- You're giving my kids ideas.
They're gonna watch this and then they're gonna be like, "Mrs. Chipman, let's try it."
- Nobody watches this, it's fine.
- Oh, I don't know.
- Okay.
So, was it 14?
- I just finished 14.
- 14 years.
- Yep.
- You gonna do it the whole way?
- I don't know.
- To whatever retirement is.
- Well, I'm in tier two, if you know what that means.
That means I have to teach for 45 years to get my full retirement.
- Who made up that rule?
- State of Illinois.
I missed it by six months so.
- What would it have been?
- 35.
- Oh, that's a big difference.
Yeah, do you still enjoy it?
- Oh, I love it.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- With the ag teachers, it seems like the good ones tend to move on, but you're also in your home community.
Does that make a difference?
- It does.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Amazing support.
- Oh, I'm still caught on the fact that 70 out of 100 or so are in FFA.
I mean, honestly, if I would put that on a T-shirt or something.
You've gotta be incredibly proud of that.
- Yeah, yeah.
When I started it was probably between 40 and 50, depending on the year.
And so, yeah, we've made huge strides.
But like I said, you know, like the younger kids, we are for the most part, K-12 in our district.
We do have another town that feeds in for high school, but the younger kids are in the hallway with our kids all the time and they see stuff on social media and the parents see what we're doing.
And so, I just think it's like, we want you to be a part of that.
Or the younger kids look up to our FFA officers are kids that are successful and they wanna be like them.
And so, also some of our best kids are the basketball captain, the football captain, you know?
And so, they see them doing everything and so they think they want to do that too.
- Okay.
Well, you must be respected by your peers.
You were the president of the IAVAT.
- AT, yep.
- What is that?
- So, that's the Illinois Association of Vocational Agriculture Teachers, which is a mouthful to say.
- That's a horrible name.
- It is, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah.
- We've tried to change it, but it hasn't happened.
So yeah, it's just the Association for Agriculture Teachers.
So, you know, like farmers are Farm Bureau members.
AG teachers are a member of this organization.
- But you were president in 2020.
- Yeah.
Unlucky me.
- Well, no, I mean, that's quite an honor.
- It is.
- I mean they're not gonna put a.
- 2020 is what I was saying was unlucky me.
- Oh, I gotcha.
- I was the president when COVID hit.
- [Rob] So, it was your fault?
- No, hopefully not.
Not that.
Yeah.
No.
- Are you only president for a year?
- Yes, but I was district director for two years and then vice president, president, and then you actually, serve the year after as past president.
So, I was on the board for five years.
- What do y'all do at those meetings, like belt sander races?
- Yeah.
And I wish it was that fun.
No, we set the calendar, pick locations.
IVAT is also in charge of all the CDEs for FFA stuff.
- [Rob] CDEs?
- Like career development events.
So the contests.
And so, we had to set locations, rules.
- Oh.
- We have lots of different committees.
- I bet you that can get, 'cause there's probably some pretty good, there has to be competition, and the other ag teachers and don't pretend there's not.
- Oh, there's crazy competition.
- Like whatever your big event is, you want that at a specific spot.
Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we're very biased on who hosts things, and yeah, yeah, it's quite the discussion.
- Do you happen to know how many ag teachers there are in Illinois?
- We are probably at close to 500 right now.
There's 386 programs.
- Okay.
- But we're probably over 500 teachers.
- But just your school has two.
- Right.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And that's becoming a more popular thing.
- Is it big up in Chicago area?
- Yeah, so they're actually, like booming up there right now.
Off the top of my head, I don't remember exactly how many schools are in like, so like athletics have conferences, right?
So, we have sections that are kind of equivalent to that in FFA.
That make up like 13 to 15 schools.
So, section eight is the section that's up by the Chicago land area, and they're probably pushing 18 to 20.
- 18 to 20.
- Schools in that section.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah.
- And it is surprising, because in our mind, you always think they're far removed, but tell me how far removed your school is in a rural setting.
- Yeah, I mean I probably can count on maybe two hands, depending on the year, but one or two hands on like how many kids actually like production agriculture.
That's their main source of income.
- If people wanna find more about you, or your chapter, or anything like that, is there a place they can go?
- Yeah.
So, Flanagan-Cornell FFA is on Facebook and Instagram.
- [Rob] Okay.
- And we're always sharing our updates.
- No TikTok?
- We have one, but it doesn't get updated as regularly.
So, that's on the goal list for this year.
- Who runs those?
Because you can't let the kids do it, right?
- Actually, we do.
So, we have an FFA reporter that does our social media.
- [Rob] Yeah.
- My fellow teacher and I do a lot of it too.
Like we've been posting for state convention, but as the year gets rolling and we get back to school, our reporter will do a lot of that.
- There seems to be a lot on TikTok and it seems like they don't last very long.
- [Jessica] Yeah.
- Because when you give that freedom up, there's always gonna be some chucklehead, right?
That thinks he's gonna be funny.
- Yeah.
- And do something that he shouldn't.
Okay, are you glad that you went this route?
- Yeah.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Very much so.
Yeah.
It's been really rewarding.
Some days, you know, you go home and you're like, can I do this again?
But the kids and the students, and you know the FFA, that's the fun stuff.
- Really?
- Yeah.
That's what makes it worth it.
The classroom stuff, the paperwork, all of that stuff can get tedious at times.
- Okay.
Why do you even teach anymore with ChatGPT?
- I know, it could do everything for you.
- Can you tell when they're using it?
- Oh yeah.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- Are you just saying that, 'cause one of the kids might watch?
- No, they know that.
- Do they?
- Yeah.
They definitely have styles of writing and so if they use, you know, big words, I'd be like, you didn't write this.
We've had a few instances like that.
- We write a magazine article for Ag PhD.
We always run it through.
- Oh yeah.
I use it for proofreading and like I've used it for award applications.
You know, it's eight pages and I need it down to five.
- Wow.
- Like I use it as a resource and we tell the kids that.
- You heard it here first kids?
- No.
- You can use ChatGPT.
Jessica Chipman from Pontiac, FFA advisor, ag teacher.
Thank you so very much.
- Yeah, thanks for having me.
- For not just being here, but what you do for agriculture and farming, what you do for your kids.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
- Really, really appreciate it, Jessica.
Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.
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