Teach Ag

Many of you who are reading this have had some sort of education (hence your ability to read). Right? In fact you may be in college or even in the grown up world of business and hourly wages. So I think it is safe to say that teachers were a crucial part of your development as well as the development of future generations. So why is there a shortage of agricultural educators?

There have been numerous times that I have thought over what my life would be like without my ag teacher. What would I have done in high school? Would I still love public speaking if I didn't have my ag teacher as my coach? The truth is, agricultural educators don't just teach you about cows and sheep. In fact, I think I learned more applicable life skills such as business, public speaking, and effective communication in that class than I did about how to milk a cow or plant wheat, (not to say that we did not learn about these things). Agricultural education teaches you so much about life lessons and being the best that you can be. 

Agricultural education provides students with a hands-on approach to doing things. There are so many career pathways in agriculture that one can find. You could have a student who loves science and wants to be a biotech engineer and another student in that same class want to be a motivational speaker. Whatever the choice of the student, agriculture education enables them to gain hands-on experience with doing what they love. I'm not exactly saying that students will be gene splicing in high school or that they will be speaking to thousands of people in the near future. The point is that if you want students to succeed in the real world, give them real problems and make them come up with real solutions. 

I chose to go in the direction of leadership and public speaking. My ag teacher would always help me write my speeches and she would endlessly critique them until I thought that I had it perfect, then she would critique them more. No matter what, she always gave me advice and still does on occasion. And guess what? I still use almost every single one of those tips each time I talk to a group of people, even in normal conversation. Sure in science you can learn stoichiometry, but I can tell you one thing. I have never used it. That is not to say that it is not important, just not for me. That is the beauty of ag ed. You can pick and choose your career pathway and still gain valuable experiences from the class that you will apply later in life.