|
Future
Farmers of America, was founded as a club for boys in agriculture
classes and began the demand for vocational agriculture teachers. The
Department of Vocational and Adult Education at Auburn University was
instrumental in starting the School of Education, which was organized in
1915 as the Department of Rural Education. In 1918, the Department of
Rural Education became the School of Agricultural Education and in 1920
the name of the new school was changed to the School of Education, known
today as the College of Education.
In
the first half of the 1900s, Alabama, like most of the South, was rural
and the majority of the population still lived in an agrarian society.
Agricultural education was important because it emphasized the needs of
the population. But, when the citizens began to migrate to cities and
farmers began to produce enough food for a hundred or more people, the
need for vocational agriculture teachers decreased.
Today,
vocational agriculture is known as agriscience education. It does not
emphasize production agriculture as it did in the 1950s and earlier, but
is a systematic program of instruction available to students desiring to
learn about the science, business and technology of plant and animal
production and/or about the environment and natural resources systems.
As
mentioned earlier, FFA began as a club for boys in agriculture classes.
In 1951, Congress passed Public Law 81-740 recognizing the importance of
FFA as an integral part of the program of vocational agriculture,
granting a federal charter to the FFA. In 1998, Congress reviewed and
passed amendments to Public Law 81-740 making it Public Law 105-225.
FFA
in Alabama has 17 team competitive contests known as Career Development
Events (CDEs), including livestock, public speaking, floriculture,
nursery-landscape and safe tractor driving, just to name a few. Nineteen
agricultural proficiency awards and 15 special agricultural proficiency
awards are also a part of the FFA experience.
Because
of the grass roots connection to agriculture in the first half of the
twentieth century, there was much interest in agricultural education.
The need to educate the youth of Alabama to return to the farm to work
with greater knowledge to improve the practices of production
agriculture was instrumental to the success of farming. But with the
increased knowledge and production practices, more food and
agricultural-related products were produced, and the need for
agricultural education on the secondary education level diminished. Thus
began a decrease in agricultural education and FFA membership.
Using
the 1981-1982 school year as the base year and 2005-2006 as the last
school year complete records are available, there was a decrease in
teachers, programs, chapters, membership and state professional and
administrative assistant staff.
The
first year listing the number of agriscience students was the 1989-1990
school year, and the enrollment was 31,944. By 1991-1992 the number of
agriscience students had increased a little more than nine percent to
33,648.
In
1996-1997 the state FFA dues increased from fifty cents per member to $2
per member. The national FFA dues increased from $3.50 to $5 per member.
(National membership also includes a subscription to the New Horizons
magazine, which is a magazine written about FFA members for FFA
members.) This school year saw a four percent decrease in the number of
agriscience teachers, 362, compared to 376 in 1991-1992.
In
the 2005-2006 school year, there were 295 schools with agriscience
programs, and 101 school systems out of 132 in the state had agriscience
programs. Currently, 66 of the state’s 67 counties have agriscience
programs.
There
are approximately 681 schools in Alabama with 7th through 12th grades
with a total enrollment of 359,623 students. Schools with enrollment of
200 or more students, which includes middle/junior high schools and high
schools with a combination of grades 7-12, with no agriscience programs
tallies 311. (There are six high schools with less than 200 students
with no agriscience program.) Schools with enrollment of 200 or more
students, which does not include magnet schools, schools with performing
arts curricula, arts programs, preparatory schools and academies for
academics and arts could have an agriscience program, because the
students are there to take the courses offered in such a program. This
calculation means that approximately half of Alabama’s public schools,
grades 7-12, have the potential to support an agriscience program.
In
summation, agriscience education has served a purpose in the education
of the people of our communities, schools and youth. The beginnings of
agriscience education fulfilled its purposes in helping spread the
knowledge of improving production agriculture and establishing FFA to
reinforce classroom experience through CDEs.
Data
reveals the decrease in agriscience teachers, FFA membership, state
staff and support personnel. However, the opportunities for expanding
agriscience education in schools and school systems throughout the state
are available. Agriscience education is an expanding and changing
program of study. It involves all the various components associated with
agriculture such as biotechnology, global positioning systems
(satellite), alternative fuels and a host of related subjects all of
which are technologically based and agriculturally connected.
In
the second article, we’ll discuss some of the possibilities of why
there is a statewide shortage of agriscience teachers and ways to help
meet the goals of teacher recruitment/retention. |
