According to consultants, agriculture teachers are in high demand as quite a few contributing elements are making it tough to fill positions in lecture rooms throughout Texas and overseas.
Offering real-life experiences and publicity to the immense selection that’s Texas agriculture, Texas A&M University‘s Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications is striving to assist fill these positions by persevering with its legacy of making ready college students for careers as agricultural educators.
“There’s such a tremendous demand that we just can’t keep up with it,” mentioned Gary Briers, Ph.D., Bryan-College Station, who has seen many transitions all through his educating profession at Texas A&M since 1980. “It’s difficult to get people to be public school teachers these days, and COVID-19 didn’t help any. In a sense, it’s caused a wreck in terms of filling open positions.”
Addressing the scarcity
A bulk of nationwide agricultural teachers in 2020 had been misplaced on account of retirements, ensuing in a lack of 17.5%, in line with an American Association for Agricultural Education National Agricultural Education Supply and Demand Study. But there’s additionally progress in suburban areas driving the necessity to service extra college district college students with teachers.
Briers mentioned he’d seen this pattern earlier than, however to not this extent. “This was all building before COVID hit,” he mentioned. “At one time, we had an excess of teachers. The problem today is we have kids who have several opportunities. They go interview for a job, and they are offered a position on the spot.”
Briers mentioned the suburban program space of Texas is by far the quickest rising, primarily the place Texas A&M college students have had a grandparent, aunt, or uncle who was concerned in manufacturing agriculture, knew of different college students exhibiting livestock, or had been energetic in agricultural associations.
“They see that and say, ‘I want to be a part of that’,” Briers mentioned. “Look at Katy ISD. That has gone from two high schools beginning in my early career days to now having 10 high schools with a broad ag sciences program and 40 teachers in the school district. They have two or three full-time veterinary teaching applications. Students are pouring in. They may not want to be veterinarians, but they love livestock, dogs, cats or perhaps see opportunities to transfer that knowledge into human medicine.”
Briers mentioned he noticed the identical situation with horticulture “when it was relatively new in our public secondary schools 30 years ago.”
“Now that has transferred into floral design, and the study focus has broadly expanded. It’s like the late Dr. Joe Townsend said, agriculture is more than just sows, cows, and plows.”
Real-life experiences
Part of the ALEC curriculum contains extra real-life experiences. When college students graduate from the division, they’re armed and prepared with a license to show, Briers mentioned.
“But we tell them to avail themselves to gain more skills,” he mentioned. “We are offering Saturday workshops where they will be learning or teaching students in our preparatory program. For some who never have pulled a trailer or hooked up a trailer, we give them those experiences of backing a trailer and navigating through cones. We also have a lot of opportunities at the RELLIS Campus at the Agricultural Workforce Complex in conjunction with our own ag mechanics laboratory.”
Briers famous that the Department of Animal Science and Department of Poultry Science are offering hands-on alternatives with its cattle, sheep, goat, and poultry laboratories.
Looking to the long run, Briers mentioned he’s hopeful that elementary colleges will proceed to undertake different agriculture- or horticulture-related actions reminiscent of establishing college gardens.
“It’s going to take someone like an ag teacher or FFA chapter to be the champion to do that,” he mentioned. “What we’ve found over the years is that kids, in fact, will eat carrots and broccoli if they grow them. If they are exposed to that and have some hands-on experience and educational experience of production, they can be taught to like vegetables.”
‘Premier ag program’
“Our team of Agricultural Sciences faculty and staff is one of the strongest in the nation,” mentioned Matt Baker, Ph.D., division head. “Under the direction of program leader Dr. Tim Murphy, our school-based teachers are highly prepared to enter the classroom equipped to teach in this post-pandemic world.”
Baker mentioned the brand new Agriculture and Workforce Complex on the Texas A&M University RELLIS campus in Bryan supplies college students entry to gear and amenities like no different in the nation.
“I am most pleased with our academic program, its outstanding students, our network of forward-thinking school-based cooperating teachers across the state, and the tremendous statewide support of our school-based programs by the Agriculture Teachers of Texas, Texas FFA Association, and the Texas FFA Foundation,” Baker mentioned.
Agricultural sciences graduates enter high-paying jobs and are regularly recruited into agriculture business careers as a result of they’ve the best mixture of technical agriculture information, hands-on expertise, {and professional} ability, Baker mentioned.
“For more than 100 years, we’ve prepared agriculture teachers,” Briers mentioned. “I think we are a premier ag program, but we are part of a team statewide.”
He mentioned different universities reminiscent of Texas Tech, Tarleton State, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, West Texas A&M, Texas A&M Commerce, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Sul Ross State, Angelo State, and Texas State are a part of that crew, and there’s room for all.
“We are all outstanding and believe we can prepare the very best across the state and nation to teach agricultural education that takes a state approach,” he mentioned. “We here at Texas A&M are great among top players, but there’s plenty of room at the top, and we invite everyone to work with us, and we work with them. Our students need all of us.”
Source: agrilifetoday.tamu.edu