Iowa Farmer Today
03-17-07
Teachers key to best ag education
By Gene Lucht, Iowa Farmer Today
WEST DES MOINES — Teachers and administrators batted around numerous
ideas for improving agricultural education in Iowa, but they finally agreed the first
piece of the puzzle is getting and retaining good teachers.
But, there are many other pieces to the puzzle, explains Robert Martin, who
heads the ag education program at Iowa State University and who acted as
host for this past week’s Summit on Agricultural Education in Iowa. Many of them
involve generating interest from students and their parents.
The good news is with a blossoming ethanol industry and high crop prices, there
is plenty of excitement in agriculture today.
“It is an amazing time to be in agriculture,” Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill
Northey told the collection of teachers and administrators gathered for the
summit. “Your job is to teach about that magic of agriculture.”
Harold Crawford, an ISU ag education professor, says teachers should adapt
Northey’s phrase and make it part of their job to promote the “magic of
agriculture.”
But, timing may be important, Northey adds. Agriculture is hot right now, and that
means this is a good time for secondary schools and colleges to promote
agriculture and talk to students about its promise.
Also, telling students about the wonders of agriculture is not enough. Ag teachers
need to start talking to students in middle school instead of high school, says
Levon Esters, an assistant professor at ISU and a former high school education
instructor on the South side of Chicago.
They also need to develop interest from students whose parents do not farm.
That means rural students who don’t farm, as well as urban students and
minority students.
They need to show those students a picture of the many career options in
agriculture, whether it is in research or agribusiness or in production.
Even in production, they need to show them agriculture is diverse and comes in
all sizes and types. Some high school teachers at the summit say it could mean
making changes, such as giving high school ag students math or science credits
for ag studies.
Doug Loudenslager, chief operating officer of the National FFA Organization,
says it could mean making agriculture a core subject rather than an elective.
Still, it starts with the teachers. Those at the summit agreed they need to do as
much as possible to help beginning ag teachers so they can attract good
students.
That help needs to be coupled with efforts to retain those teachers once they get
experience.
That’s often difficult, Martin says, because ag teachers are very attractive to the
business community and often can leave teaching to make significantly more
money in private business.