SD Agricultural Education and FFA History
What the Future Holds!
by Clark W. Hanson, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural Education, SDSU
Authors’ Note: To commemorate the passage of the Smith Hughes Act of 1917, Dr. Hanson has written a historical summary of events that occurred in the South Dakota Agricultural Education program. Over a period of time a series of articles will share how the South Dakota program originated and developed the past 100 years.
Society is requesting that schools provide work-based instruction to all high school graduates. Preparation for a career is paramount to the degree of success a graduate will experience in transferring from high school to initial full time employment.
This is not a new concept. One of the nation’s leading proponents for the establishment of secondary vocational agriculture programs, Rufus W. Stimson, was firmly convinced that a school project on the home farm should be a key component of the high school agriculture program. Over the years and true today, the concept has not maintained its “status” in local curriculums.
The 1963 Vocational Education Act encouraged the Agricultural Education profession to expand the curriculum beyond cows, sows and plows. Now, nearly sixty years later the secondary curriculum represents a wide range of topics. Over the years, it appears, the curriculum outpaced the development of opportunities for students to complete a work experience program.
Reflections by Dani Herring, SD FFA Executive Secretary:
“This is a unique time for Agricultural Education, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic and all that entails, but the nature of Ag programs, teachers and FFA is changing. You can see a drastic switch from the traditionally male dominated industry, to a vast majority of new graduates being female. I recently saw a statistic that of student teachers in 2019 there was 15 female student teachers and 3 males. I also think we are seeing a shift in what we will call "long term" teachers. I don't think we will see any more 30+ year teachers, and will start to see Ag teachers come in and teach for 10-15 years and they will be the most experienced in the industry. You can see from other industry sectors that people are not staying in careers nearly as long, but are moving around more often. From a South Dakota Association Agricultural Education (SDAAE) perspective, we will have to change what we do to provide meaningful professional development for teachers. We will also have to make sure we prove the worthiness of joining professional organizations like South Dakota Association of Career & Techical Education (SDACTE) and SDAAE. The argument that ‘it's just what you do’ isn't going to work with this new generation of Ag teachers.”
Future situation as shared by Dr. Laura Hasselquist, Professor Agricultural Education, SDSU:
“I think there will be a stronger push to have more postsecondary connections. I feel that the big push right now and for the foreseeable future is to get students as prepared as possible for college or career. Requiring industry certificates at the secondary level is coming. It will be directly tied to Perkins funding. In addition to career skills, I think Ag teachers will be asked to highlight more core academic principles into their classrooms (something they are already doing). I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Career & Technical Education (CTE) teachers become certified in multiple areas of schools looking to hire a “CTE teacher” instead of an Ag Ed position. It gives them more flexibility if they can do a little bit of a lot of things.
The recent establishment of a new high school agricultural education program will only enhance future enrollment offerings.”
The National Council for Agricultural Education (The Council) is composed of representatives of the following organizations: Agricultural Education Division of the Association for Career and Technical Education, American Association for Agricultural Education, Association of Public Land-Grant Universities, National Association of Agricultural Educators, National Association of Supervisors of Agricultural Education, National FFA Alumni and Supporters, National FFA Foundation, National FFA Organization, National Farm & Ranch Business Management Education Association, National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization, and National Young Farmer Educational Association.
In 2011, The Council for Agricultural Education hosted a national summit to determine the “driving forces” leading to “quality experiential, work based and project based learning in agricultural education.” Barriers to maximizing supervised
agricultural experience efforts identified:
- Limited teacher contract time,
- Enrolled students did not necessarily have an agricultural production back ground,
- Minimum resources to create possible SAE programs,
- Types of programs could participate in at the local level,
- Lack of insight of SAE’s role in student development.
Outcomes of the summit lead to the establishment of philosophies and guiding principles for the enhancement of Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). Phase one included Foundational SAE activities:
- Career exploration and planning,
- Personal financial planning and management,
- Workplace safety,
- Employability skills for college and career readiness and,
- Agricultural literacy.
This was followed by a second phase consisting of:
- Entrepreneurship/ownership,
- Placement/internships,
- Research (experimental, analytical, invention)
- School business enterprises
- Service learning
The Council has overseen the development of resources to aid in the continued development of the program available as PDF and online. The resources include:
- SAE for All – A Guide for Teachers and Students
- SAE Philosophy Guiding Principles
- SAE Teaching Resources
- Learning Guides Online Course
- Industry Specific SAE Career Kits
The current basis for SAE as expressed by The Council for Agricultural Education in
a white paper entitled (adopted March, 2015), “Philosophy and Guiding Principles
for Execution of the Supervised Agricultural Experience Component of the Total
School Based Agricultural Education Program” is:
Experiential and work-based learning in school based agricultural education allows local programs to extend beyond the classroom and into the community in order to develop an individual student’s industry and career-based competencies. The methodology for delivering such high quality experiential learning is the Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE).
In 2016, The Council also developed “National Quality Program Standards.” Standard 2 states: Students learning (or instruction) is enhanced through continuous experiential, project and work-based learning through SAE. Each standard has a number of Quality Indicators. SAE has 7 indicators, and each indicator has 5 rubrics for ranking quality expectations.
A conference conducted, fall 2020, under the sponsorship of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Strada Education Network produced a document entitled, “Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career and Technical Education.”
The collective thinking of nearly 200 attendees representing all “stakeholders” of the Career and Technical Education set forth five principles:
- Each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible and responsive career preparation ecosystem,
- Each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem,
- Each learner skillfully navigates their own career journey,
- Each learner’s skills are counted, valued and portable,
- Each learner can access CTE without borders.
The Council, a think tank, recently established strategic strategies for 2021-2025:
- Recruit, prepare, retain & support agricultural educators.
- Engage and transition students to be leaders and advocates in/for agricultural and related industries.
- Include all people and leverage diverse approaches.
- Develop collaborations within and beyond our agricultural education community.
The third strategy contains two SAE action steps: reinforce and improve work-based learning; develop industry-valued and industry-validated certifications and credentials for students. Strategy number four contains one SAE action step: gather metrics and publicize information that measures the success, value, and importance
of agricultural education
The teacher’s task of maintaining an up to date curriculum can be a daunting task, especially for the beginning teacher as one struggles with creating exciting lessons, a desire to enhance student engagement and increase class enrollment. Even, the veteran teacher has moments of doubt as they reflect on revising curriculum. The Council recommends implementing the following:
- The Agriculture Food Natural Resources Career Cluster Content Standards provide state agricultural education leaders and educators with a high-quality,
rigorous set of standards to guide what students should know and be able to do after completing a program of study in each of the AFNR career pathways.
With expanded roles for the local instructor it is important that programs consider utilizing “community experts” to supervise and to an extent coach Leadership Develop Events and Career Development Events, SAE programs and Science Fair projects.
A steady supply of teachers is absolutely necessary. With Edgemont High School adding an Agricultural Education program, fall semester 2021, the number of programs in South Dakota will total 100. The “Teach Agriculture Campaign” sponsored by the National Association of Agricultural Educators will require implementation every year. A recent study conducted at Iowa State University entitled“ Determining why agricultural educators are leaving the profession and how to increase the teacher retention rate” stated that beginning teachers may feel frustrated and leave the teaching profession as they “can’t fill the shoes of their predecessor” but should rather be encouraged to build their own program.
A useful devise for an analysis of a local program has been developed by The Council
entitled “National Quality Program Standards for Agriculture, Food and Natural
Resources Education.” The purpose of the tool is described as:
- The Quality Program Standards for Secondary (Grades 9-12) Agriculture and Natural Resource is a tool designed for local agriculture, food and natural resource education programs to analyze their program and develop clear goals and objectives for program growth. This tool is designed to be used by local teacher(s) in cooperation with administrators, community partners, advisory committees, FFA support groups and/or external assessment team.
The document consists of seven standards to assess programs including a “Program
Growth Target Planning Guide.” While the quality indicators may seem rigorous for instructors it could well serve as a reference guide for personal professional growth.
Author’s comment: The Agricultural Education and FFA articles were initially intended to be a two year project. Now four and half years later, we have accomplished our goal of 24 articles. The project has expanded along the way. To view the proposed web site go to: sdffafoundation.org and click on History of AgEd and FFA. It will become a historical exhibit with educational components.
|
