CTE speakers and a broken toe!

This week was supposed to be a pretty chill week due to the 4-day week as well as a guest speaker on our block (1 hour 20 minutes) day. 

However, the week started off with me having to be out for the first periods of the day due to a hurt toe. I was grabbing wrapping paper in the garage when an Indo board (skateboarding training board...bigger and thicker than a regular skateboard) crashed on to my toe. 

I went to urgent car during 1st and 2nd period, and after the x-ray, the doctor informed me that it was broken. My first broken toe at 36. Who would have thought.

I am now in a boot for 3-4 weeks. 

It's not as big as I thought it would be, but it certainly still hurts! 

This all transpired before 3rd period on Tuesday, so of course it set the tone for a pretty interesting week. 

I wanted to write this post about CTE speakers. We are fortunate at my new school that we have a CTE Coordinator that contacts career guest speakers and invites them to our classroom. She does an interest survey with students and then cold calls or emails different people in the community. So far this year, we've had Wildlife Game Wardens, and yesterday we had a representative from the Office of Emergency Services (makes plans for natural disasters).

Here are a few pics from the Wildlife Game Wardens:

Abalone (illegal)

Baby Mountain Lion rescued from under a car

Antler that was taken off a deer...it was caught in rope

Fish illegal to catch in our county

Here are some other pics from our guest speaker yesterday, from the Office of Emergency Services:

These were great presentations because our area is rich in wildlife diversity and also called the "Disneyland of Disasters" because we literally have a disaster for everyone.

Of course we love guest speakers because they break up the monotony of the classroom. Here are some tips that I've found are useful for having guest speakers in the classroom:

• Have a pack of bottled water and some snacks on hand always as courtesy gifts to the guest speakers. I write parent groups for this. 
• Have a pack of thank you cards/stamps on hand always, for students to complete after the guest speaker has left (or the day after)
• Set up nametags on each desk so that the speaker knows every person's name, easily
• Have the person's name projected so it looks professional when the guest speaker/students walk in

Other "Nice to Have's":

• Microphone (working on submitting a grant for this!)
• Print or Frame to give speakers with a nice design, something like "Thank you for sharing your talents with ____ High's CTE Program"

I'm not sure what we have in store next for our CTE guest speakers. We typically try to do 1x month, for the longer block periods to break it up. Last year we had a Fire Chief, Fitness Nutritionist, Mercedes Benz Automotive Technician, Land Surveyor and SPCA. We try to find speakers also that have jobs that don't require a college degree.

Do you have guest speakers come in to your specialized academic instruction classes? What are some of the best you have seen? One of the best that we have seen was the Head of Radiology from our local hospital! He had such a motivational speaker and gave candy throughout. :-) 

Have a great rest of your day!

Kristine