Who'll Teach Agriculture

 Shane Stephenson is a high school teacher in the Meridian School District in Idaho, but not just any kind of teacher. He teaches agriculture, but let’s make that Agricultural Science. It’s been one of my pet peeves ever since I got involved in ag that there aren’t more schools that offer ag courses. You can take acting classes, Phys. Ed., guitar but in most urban settings…no ag. You just heard Shane say that there are lots of careers in agriculture but what about training?

 “Right now with ag teachers, we’re looking for agricultural educators. There’s a shortage across the country, the national FFA organization has set forth a pretty big campaign to gain more agricultural educators so that’s just one example of it. If we need to educate people, we obviously need to educate them for jobs and they’re certainly there. So in my mind, I just think we have to find out ways to attract people. It’s frustrating to see where there’s programs that not necessarily pushed them out but haven’t allowed agriculture in there.”

 How many people in this world can tell me the cosine of .33 or what it means. What about the first derivative of 2x(squared) -17. That’s math…that’s taught everywhere…I don’t mean to diminish education or be a smart aleck but try having  that or European History for dinner.