Welcome to the Agricultural Education Panel Discussion!
The Third Discussion
Five well-rounded volunteers are participating, bringing a wealth of knowledge, information, and encouragement to the world of Agricultural Education and its importance in educational curriculums.
There are five topics that the panel discusses. Before continuing with the third discussion, let’s introduce the panel…each hand-picked to represent a variety of educators and a variety of learning environments.
Ryan, Debra, and Karlee are teachers that work closely with students, developing and delivering comprehensive lessons in the traditional setting. Melissa is a homeschool educator, managing lesson plans while creating and tailoring the best educational environment for her children. Katie is an educator for a community youth group who focuses on bringing agriculture close-to-home for kids that do not have agricultural education within their schools.
Click Here to read an in-depth introduction of each of the educators participating in our panel discussion.
Terms used:
Ag and/or Ag Ed may be used interchangeable for Agricultural Education
The term FFA is used below. FFA, formerly known as Future Farmers of America, is a national organization that is implemented in schools throughout the U.S. It prepares students for an education and career in leadership, science, and business for agricultural pursuits.
Learn more at https://www.ffa.org/
4H refers to the community-based national organization that promotes a multitude of education and skills. In rural communities, 4H groups usually focus on agricultural topics.
Learn more at https://4-h.org/about/what-is-4-h/
The third topic:
(NTF asked):
There's no argument that well-rounded curriculums are important to a student’s learning, but there is an argument that certain subjects, such as Agricultural Education, are outdated or too unimportant to the modern time to keep in schools. How does/could Agricultural Education enrich your students’ academic and non-academic life?
Ryan – Middle School Science Teacher in a Rural School District
“Coming from an education background, I will say that the American Education system has become entirely too hyper-focused on meeting ‘standards’ and mandated testing. While I want all of my students to be fluent readers and to be well versed in mathematics, I know that many of my students are not necessarily going to need to know the definition of ‘superfluous’ or recite the Pythagorean theorem. However, identifying healthy options of food or learning how to grow their own fruits and vegetables on their own property would be beneficial to ALL of my students. While I love my job as an educator, I do, at times, feel ashamed that we are not preparing kids for their futures in a practical sense of being able to support themselves in a positive and healthy way.”
Debra – High school Agricultural Education and FFA teacher in a rural school district
“Ag Ed prepares students for real world applications both academically and non-academically.”
(refer to https://www.ffa.org/ for more information)
Karlee – High school Spanish teach in a suburban/densely populated school district
“I believe there are many components of Agricultural Education that can benefit all students no matter the subject matter. We are often encouraged to consider Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences in our instruction. One of these intelligences is Naturalistic learning. What this means is a student may learn best when their content is integrated with the environment. While this may be difficult to do every day, it is certainly not impossible. In Spanish class, we learn about a lot of culture and current events. Much of this culture revolves around economic crisis, poverty, and developing countries. In Cuba during the 90s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was an economic crisis called ‘The Special Period’. It was a time of great hunger and despair for the Cuban people as they lost their trade and resources. Many were forced into veganism due to shortage of meat. At their most desperate times, they ate rats, cats, and Zoo animals. Then came the small-scale agricultural boom. People decided to try their hand at growing what they could wherever they could. This might have been a parking lot, patio, their yard if they had one. This helped ease some of the burden they had.”
There are community projects in Spanish Speaking countries that aim at creating more independent individuals and teaching them how to better their quality of life. Project Chacocente is a non-profit that helps Nicaraguans move out of the Managua city dump where they were living, to rural Masaya where they are taught sustainable farming, how to build a home, and where they are given an education. Small divisions like these are helping remove the cycle of extreme poverty from some of the most destitute areas simply through sustainability practices. (see http://www.outofthedump.org/)
(see https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/how-cubans-health-improved-when-their-economy-collapsed/275080/ for an interesting take on the
crisis)
In Venezuela today, the country suffers from economic crisis due to political unrest causing its 70% of imported foods to be cut off. People stand in line all day to buy bread but bakers are unable to produce demand based on how much wheat they are allocated each day. Some of the bakers resort to making desserts instead that they can sell for more profit. Some are resorting to eating scraps from the trash or re-purposing found items to sell. A popular thing to do is take vegetable scraps from the trash and make a stew or vegetable medley to sell. If Venezuela were more independent and had sustainability practices, they wouldn't have been hurt so much by this crisis. (see https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/news/economy/venezuela-food-prices/index.html?iid=EL)
These are just a few of the things that we discuss in my Spanish classes that all center around Agriculture or sustainability.
Melissa – Home school educator in a rural area
“I think growing up in the outdoors and having chores like feeding the chickens or tasks on butchering day, give them experiences that the majority of kids do not have today. Not only will that give them some really interesting life experiences to share with others as they grow, [but] I believe they are learning how to do unpleasant things because they enjoy the result (like getting paid to help with the chickens or eating the food that comes after butchering day). One of my sons has been tending to a watermelon plant all summer, and I can see the patience that is developed in him looking at how big it has gotten every day. He will (literally) reap the fruit of his labor.”
Katie - Lead educator for youth program located within the city of Columbus, Ohio
“I think those who argue that agriculture is ‘outdated or too unimportant’ to teach in modern schools is seriously fooling themselves on the needs of our planet and population. Thorough, well-documented, research has already shown us that we will have a hard time feeding the growing population of the world. Perhaps those who believe agriculture is too outdated are thinking that agriculture is only for older farmers in fields and fields of corn and wheat. In this case, I agree! Monoculture should be taught so kids know what NOT to do! :) “
“The lessons and work we do with students in the garden has a significant impact. To name a few:
● The garden offers nearby students to grow, play, and learn in one of the few green spaces around.
● 96.5% of the students coming to us from a local elementary school qualify for a free school lunch, meaning their family’s income is 130% below the federal poverty line. The [Columbus] Hilltop area, where Highland Youth Garden is home to, is considered a food desert, with little access to fresh foods. Students regularly try fresh fruits and vegetables in their classes and in other programming, helping to introduce them to items they might have not otherwise had access to and supplementing some of their nutritional needs.
● As previously mentioned, concepts covered in garden class almost always support Ohio Learning Standards. This means that they learn a concept in their classroom, and then come over to the garden to have that concept reinforced in a different environment, all while focusing on gardening, environmental education, and nutrition.
The fourth topic to will discuss how Agricultural Education may enrich a students academic and non-academic life.
Click here to continue reading
Click Here to read more about our panel participants
Find the first discussion Here and the second discussion Here