Ep 31 | Opportunities for Rural Kids: Grow This & Learn That

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's amazing to me is these students are willing to eat the things that they grow. But whenever you talk to their parents, they're like, wait, what? They ate collard greens? They ate anything that was green? You know, like they don't understand. Um, but when the when it when the students are taking ownership and what they're growing, you know, they're all in. You know, they're willing to eat it, they're willing to cook it. Um, so it's it's a really fun experience to see that, you know, just the light bulb go off. Like, oh, I have the power to grow these things as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. We tend to think of big cities as the places where the best opportunities lie for jobs, education, and unlocking potential in young people. But what if I told you that there's a program in rural Escambia County that not only gives middle schoolers scholarship opportunities, real-world education, and a sense of belonging, but also contributes to the world's greatest need. I was surprised too. The need is food, and the program is the agricultural program at Beulah Middle School. My next guest is passionate about the hands-on learning that ag programs offer, and today she's going to share how her program is helping kids belong and contribute to the success of our community. Ag Teacher at Beulah Middle School, Uniting Rural and City Kids, Tate High Graduate Leanne Jenkins. Thanks for being here. Well, it's so exciting to meet so many people that um in the county that are, you know, from a young age, wanted to go into teaching, and you're one of them. But most of them that I've met, they hop around in, you know, different departments of teaching. You, however, my dear, went straight to ag. So what inspired you to do that?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Well, I like you said, you know, a lot of people know that they want to be a teacher. And from a very young age, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I used to love going to a friend's house and helping to grade her mom's papers. And I just I just thought it was the greatest um career choice. Uh, but when I was a sophomore in high school at Tate High School, I was placed into an ag class. I didn't sign up for the agricultural class. I just happened there. Um, but I fell in love with the opportunities to just get my hands dirty. We had a garden, um, we had cattle there at the school. Um, I got really involved in the intercurricular club that is part of ag education, that's the FFA. And I just I knew that was where I wanted to be for my teaching career. So I went straight into ag education in college and started teaching as soon as I graduated college.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Wow. Was there a specific moment in the program in high school that made you just seal the deal for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um, I mean, just probably through um the FFA contest that I was participating in. Um, my ag teacher, Mr. Kelly, um, I we're still close because I just he poured so much into my life and he believed in me. Um, and you know, as a young person, that's what you need, and that's what I found in that program. And so I I guess what sealed the deal was just um just becoming myself through his instruction and through what's what was provided there and um and just finding my place.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

That's incredible. I love it when there's always a teacher, you know, that's behind things too, because um it seems like it's such an underappreciated source of inspiration, you know. It's true. Even celebrities and musicians, they can always cite an educator in their life that made the biggest difference. I can I can cite so many. Well, you didn't hesitate, you're like Mr. Kelly, he was the guy. And the program there at Beulah Middle School is so popular that in its second year the school had to hire an assistant for it. And then in the third year, they had to add another teacher. What makes it so popular with the kids that it's growing so quickly?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

They just they love the hands-on experience. Like we obviously have the traditional classroom that we spend a lot of time in. Um, but one of my goals as a teacher is to get them outside every day for at least 20 minutes. Um, so we try to budget enough time at the end of the class period for hands-on learning. And we call it that. We call it hands-on learning. And we enter the land lab, which is behind my classroom. We have a little farm, and the kids um most days they get to choose um what they want to do with their hands-on learning time. Sometimes it's more structured, like we'll all be in the greenhouse together, or we'll all be um in the goat pen, you know, maybe working on their hooves that day. Um, but some days they just get to, you know, choose where they're gonna be, if they're gonna be um, you know, with the chickens or filling up um the water troughs or whatever it is that really just gets them excited about the ag class.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

This is getting me excited. I'm not even it it truly is so much fun. I grew up in Nebraska and I split my time between two different small towns. And Nebraska, you know, most of it is based on some agricultural something. But in both of the small towns that I grew up in, there were no built-in ag programs in the school. And um, so I have all the small town vibes with none of the knowledge, which I'm pretty sure just makes me a redneck. And that's okay. I mean, you know, it is what it is. But what I'm trying to say is I have no idea what an ag program looks like for a student. So can you paint a picture of what the program looks like?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Absolutely. Um, so and a lot of my students uh were just like me in the sense that in 10th grade I just ended up in this class and it wasn't one that I actually requested. And so I do have those students come in and you'll have them ask, what's the point of this? You know, why am I in here? And I just I like to remind them, I'm like, Do you eat? Are you wearing clothes? Did you create those things? Because there the thing that we all have in common is we are all reliant on the agricultural industry. And one of the things that I like to teach the most in my class is um, you know, we need to be thankful for the things that we have and thankful for the farmers that provide those things. Um, each day in class we say a list of virtues. That's something that I stole from an amazing teacher at Rancil Middle School, Mr. O'Rear, his um his class, they say virtues every day. Well, we say the virtues every day, but we finish the virtues with and be thankful for a farmer. And that's how we start our day. Um, because if anything, when they leave my program or leave the program at Beulin Middle School, I want them to have an appreciation for the things that we have, um, for food, fiber, our natural resources. Um, the way that's set up is we dig deep into the plant industry, uh, the animal industry, um, and just where you know our natural resources come from. Um, we do that in the classroom setting. Um, I would say probably about 30 minutes, we'll we'll do a little bit, you know, of book work or um I'll show them videos of real life um farming situations. Um, we do identification of different um, you know, uh like swine breeds and um cattle breeds. Um and then we'll take whatever we're learning and we'll try to go outside and um and just learn further using our hands. Um and I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Um, sixth and seventh grade are half a they're they're a semester course, so it's a half a year. But our eighth graders are with us um for the entire year. They have the opportunity in eighth grade to um take an industry certification test. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

In eighth grade. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Oh my gosh, that's so cool. It is really neat. Um, and it's it's really neat to see them work so hard to accomplish something so big. Um, because it's not an easy test. I think uh the pass rate um nationwide, I don't know what it is, but I think it's around the 60 or 70 percent pass rate. Oh, wow. And so to pass the test is a big deal. And what's the certification? The certification is agricultural systems. Okay. Um, and then once they go into high school, if they follow into an ag program, there's um additional certifications that they can earn. And one of the things I tell the students is um a certification on your resume is a great thing because it shows your employer or future employer um that you're teachable and that you work hard and that you're willing to put in the hours. Um, and so it's a really great thing, and it's great for them to start at a young age to see how valuable those things can be. Um so yeah, that's that's a little bit of how our program is set up.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I can really see how the certification, especially, would instill a sense of pride and accomplishment when you're launching into high school. That would be really important. Um I want to dig into something you said earlier. You said you dive deep into kind of where our food comes from. What does that look like inside a classroom?

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Inside a classroom, okay. So I um so I I tell the students that, you know, everybody relies on agriculture, whether it's like the food, fiber, natural resources, those are things that um we need every day. So uh in the classroom, we break it down on what that looks like, what American agriculture looks like, what um is it the history or you know, because there's definitely different like the traditional way of farming versus the more industrial way of farming, for example.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And now we have um regenerative farming, which is I I mean, I don't I'm not really not that familiar with it, but I understand it's kind of a blend of industrial and traditional. Am I totally off? No, that's correct. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

And um we do, we talk a lot about um the history of farming. So within the first couple of weeks of class, we learn about um big agricultural inventions and how they changed our lives. Um and then we go from there. And we talk about how, you know, um, by the end of um by 2025, there's gonna be 8.5 billion people in the world. And so our population is growing at a rapid rate. And so, in order for us to meet the needs of the ever-growing population, um, agricultural has to be changing. And um, you know, new inventions in our in our classroom, in my classroom alone, we have three different hydroponic systems to where we can, you know, grow a lot of we grow lettuce because we it's so cute. The kids love to walk up and just grab a piece of lettuce and eat it. They think it's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Um where else would a kid think it's super cool to like grab lettuce and eat it? Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

And so it it's neat for them to be able to see how much we can grow in such a little area and how we can grow things in a non-traditional way. And so so, yes, we are talking about um the ever-changing agricultural industry and how it has to change um in order to meet, you know, the growing population.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

What's the feedback that you get from kids? Because when I I'm thinking about my garden disaster, when I um it was almost 10 years ago, I tried to do an organic garden in my backyard. And that process gave me a lot of respect for where my food comes from. And it gave me respect for organic produce, especially because it requires so much ancestral knowledge that I did not have. And so instead of ancestral knowledge, it was internet knowledge. Um, and it didn't go great. I'm not gonna lie. I um I think I had some collards and that and of all the things that I planted, I had one pot of collards. That was it for the whole season because it didn't go great. Um, so I I just it changed my perspective on appreciating my food. It it changed how I um don't I don't waste food, you know. Um so I'm curious what kinds of comments and reactions do the kids give you once they learn about, you know, the um the where the food comes from and the supply chain and how all that works.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Right. They're overwhelmed by it. Really? Um yes, and they're excited by it. And to actually create something with your own hands. Actually, yesterday, one of my students was asking me, Miss Chickens, when are we going to grow seeds in the the bags? Because that was something that she did last year in our class. And what we did is we um grew the seeds in the bags on the window, but then after they started growing, we transplanted them into the greenhouse, into pots. And then some of them we transplanted into from the pots into our raised garden beds. And so to actually see the process and not just, oh, I go to the grocery store to buy my food, but actually the work that goes into it. They love it. They love it. And another thing is we've made collard greens in class before with collards that we grew at school. And what's amazing to me is these students are willing to eat the things that they grow. But whenever you talk to their parents, they're like, wait, what? They ate collard greens? They ate anything that was green, you know, like they don't understand. Um, but when the when it when the students are taking ownership and what they're growing, you know, they're all in. You know, they're willing to eat it, they're willing to cook it. Um, so it's it's a really fun experience to see that, you know, just the light bulb go off, like, oh, I have the power to grow these things as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Wow, what a light bulb for parents, too. Because you know, as a parent, you might say, Well, my child has everyone has a a certain palate, right? So you might say, My kid is a picky eater and they're just not gonna eat, you know, fill in the blank with whatever vegetable usually, right? Yes. Um, and so it's it's interesting. That's an interesting accidental experiment. Exactly. What about scholarship opportunities? Are there any ways that these certifications or programs lead to free college?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Absolutely, especially here in Florida. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with the Bright Future Scholarship, but it's something that is offered, you know, statewide for students. And for students that are in agriculture, um, if you complete an agricultural program, you could qualify for the 75% Bright Futures scholarship. Um, so that's what I did. Um, through my ag program at Tate, I was able to qualify for 75% of my tuition being paid for. Um, but then also through the FFA, there were a lot of scholarships available. And so I was able to go to school debt-free because of, you know, just the opportunities that were presented through FFA and then following up with the scholarships. And um, so yeah, there's a ton of opportunities there for sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

How does the FFA intertwine with the program at the school?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I'm so glad you asked. So um the FFA takes what we are learning in the classroom and it takes it a step further. And so um basically um ag education is a three-circle model. You have classroom instruction, you have the FFA, and then you have something called an SAE, which is a supervised agricultural experience. And that's encouraging students to on their own take what they're learning in the classroom and apply it at home or in a job or like in an internship. Um, but the FFA, so um, it just offers a lot of different um contests. They're called career development events, and it takes, again, it takes the knowledge that you're learning in the classroom and it uh it applies it deeper. And you use that in like a competitive sense. And there's also leadership development events, and that really it brings out the public speaking skills in students. I was talking to a student yesterday and I said, you know, what what's your favorite thing that you've gotten out of ag education and FFA? And he said, My confidence. Like I didn't know that I could be a public speaker. And um, and it it reminded me of a story. Last summer, a parent was able to travel with us to the state FFA convention that was in Orlando. And our team was competing in the parliamentary procedure finals, which meant they they were top four in the state, which is a huge deal. And um, they competed in front of a couple hundred people. And as they exited the room, I looked over and this mom is just weeping. And I'm like, What's wrong with you? Are you okay? And she said, I just had no idea my child had that in him. And she said, I'm just so proud. And so I think um, you know, the other thing, I just get so excited when I talk about it. Um, it just it brings out the best in the kids and it encourages them to really um, you know, dig deep into a subject that they otherwise wouldn't have. I have I have a little student that wants to be a forester when she grows up. Before being in an ag education class or before being in the forestry career development event, she had no idea that that was even a thing. You know. Um but now that she is committed, that's what she wants to do when she um gets older. And so last year we had a group of boys um that competed in the aquaculture career development event. And they won first in the state. In the whole state. In the whole state. Oh my god. And it was their first year competing in this. Um, but they they just um they jumped into the information, they thought it was super interesting, and now they are just hooked. We were able to go to um a catfish farm and talk to the farmer about what what it looks like to be a farmer um uh in that industry. And so it's just real life experiences and they get to see these career opportunities that they otherwise wouldn't see.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Wow, that's incredible. Well, you think about, like I said in the intro, about where opportunities are, and definitely, you know, growing up at a small town myself, it was oh, well, you'll need to go to Omaha, the big next biggest town. Well, it's actually the biggest town in Nebraska, but that's neither here nor there. But the I the point is you think like you have to leave somewhere to even discover the opportunities. And what I found so interesting about learning about the AG program at Beulah Middle is that those opportunities are laid out for the kids in that community because it is a more rural community. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Um, I'd like to tell you about like the first couple years at the community. If you don't mind. So I was thinking about it, and when we first started the program, there was a greenhouse, an amazing greenhouse the county put in for us. Um, but the kids had these dreams of you know having a real working farm at the school. And so they started doing fundraisers. Um, we got a grant through Ascend, the community impact grant, and they were able to um design a goat pasture. And so we have we have a big pasture, it has two paddocks in it. Um and wait, what's a paddock? It's um it's just a a broken up area for the animals to be. So we can rotate um between the two areas. So is it a fenced in like a pen? It's a fenced in pen that's divided into two. Oh, okay. Yeah, and so that way like a little goat apartment. Exactly. Right. Got it. And speaking of goat apartments, the students have built, like in each of the fields, they have their own little goat like shed. Um, we we like to call it the um, what did a student call it? She called it the the Taj Mastall. Oh my god. She called it because it was so fancy. Um, so we have one of those in each field that they built. Um, we also have um four different chicken coops that we call them our chicken tractors because we move them once a week so that they're fertilizing the grass. Um and they built all of those. We built one each year. Um, I said, let's not build any more because we don't need any more chickens, but because we're up to about 20, and then we have three ducks. But our goats, um, we started with two. Um, now we have one Nigerian and we have four Nubian breeding goats.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

I love the Nigerian ones. I know. Yes, they're so cute. They're like sometimes they cuddle. They're so cute.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Well, our Nigerian is um is very naughty. She's my favorite because she's so naughty. But our Nubians, we breed them every spring. Up until this year, we had bred one per year. Um, but the first year that we bred, um, her name is Hollywood, and um, I love this story. So we moved Holly a couple days before her due date, we moved her to the back porch of the ag program. And she was in a little fenced area, and we said that we were just gonna get her used to um her birthing suite, is what we called it. And last period, um, one day I was I was teaching and a little boy had gone out to the back porch because we had baby ducks that we had just incubated, and they had um they were in a little pen out back. Well, he came back in and he said, Miss Jenkins, that goat out there is having a baby. And I said, Oh no, he she's not having a baby. We just we have her out there to get familiar with the area. We still have a couple of days ago to go, and he said, Well, yeah, I really feel like I saw something coming out of her, Ms. Jenkins. So of course I run out there, and sure enough, there's a hoof coming out of her. And I'm like, okay, it's go time, you know? So I go back in and I tell my students, I said, okay, we're gonna have to go out here, but nobody's allowed to say a word. Well, word got around in the three classes or the two classes that are close to my class, they all three came out. So we had like over 60 students on the back porch. You could not hear a sound. They were so respectful, so quiet. I didn't know middle schoolers could be so quiet, but they were so excited to witness this. They watched as that mama delivered triplets. What? And it was the most amazing. It will go down in history as one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Oh my god. And that um, and another thing that was so neat about the situation was one of my neighboring teachers, she's real techie. I'm not, but she pulled out her iPad and she started up a Google Meet, and the whole school had the opportunity to jump in and watch as well. And so it's just really neat how at our school everybody is invested in the ag program because they see the value in it. Um, and so it it was definitely one of my favorite moments as an ag teacher.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. That is so amazing. So I I can't believe we're almost to the end of our time, but I'd love for you to um share what you feel like the benefit is for students who stay on the ag path. Like what are their career options? What does that look like for them as members of our society? And then what does it look like for students who don't go the ag path, but they take the ag program? What what what benefits do they take away that follow them into adult life?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Right. Um, well, first of all, I would say um the leadership that we teach um within our curriculum, but then also within the FFA, um, they learn skills that they can use forever. Communication skills, collaboration skills. Um, they're they're just invaluable, um, the things that they learn within the class. Um and then, you know, as far as careers, um, I think the statistic is 10.6% of all careers in America are actually related to agriculture. Really? So one in every 10 of us are gonna go into an agricultural field in some way.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Um now less than that's true because like engineering, right? So many things are engineering, structural, civil, mechanical, uh, environmental, all those things. And that would definitely be involved with agriculture.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Absolutely. And you know, you think about a nutritionist or excuse me, a nutritional. Um a nutritionist? Yes, I totally just watched that up. You ever had that word that you're used? Oh, every day. Every day, every day. Um and you know, just things that you don't think of that are, you know, involved in agricultural industry, um, but and also science, you know, scientists, you know, and just having to come up with new methods and um GMOs and ways to grow our food better and more efficiently to, again, meet that ever-growing population. Um, so, and then just to be an educated consumer, because all of us are consumers. And so to know um where it is that your food is coming from. We have a group of students that they're leaving soon to go to the state meats judging contest. It's in Tampa. And um they're going with um Miss Davis, she's the other act teacher at the school. And one thing that I love about that contest is yes, they're learning knowledge to win a contest, but they're learning how to pick out a good um cut of meat. They're learning um what are the different cuts of meat and um where this meat comes from, what type of animal does it come from? And so whether they go into the meat industry or not, whether they're a meat scientist or not, they're always gonna be, you know, a consumer. And so it's practical information that they will be able to carry with them for a lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Wow. I never even thought about that. But you're right. I could see where the ag program teaches kids really how to just live on this planet, you know, because I think about survival. I think about hurricanes and I think about when the grocery store closes, right? And then that's when you feel very vulnerable and you realize, oh wow, I'm really dependent on these supply chains and these systems. And I could really see how the power of or the empowerment of agriculture makes that shift from feeling vulnerable to feeling calm and confident because you you know how to like exist in this world. Absolutely. Yes. And for the kids that go on into agriculture, to do into you know that field, do they typically become farmers? I feel like that's the obvious, you know, um, career path. Or are there other, you know, uh direct paths that they would take that are in line with agriculture?

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Well, so less than 2% of our population are actually farmers. And so that's kind of it's a hard um career to get into, um, especially because a lot of the farms, like the smaller farms, are turning into these large, you know, corporate farms. Um, but I would say a lot of our students are um like going like specialty um fields. So for instance, um like the little girl who wants to be a forester. There's another student that um was in our program at Tate High School. She's currently at the Miss She's at Mississippi State and she's studying to be a forester. She is almost done and she's about to enter into that field. Um, you know, I mentioned meat science. Um, there's another girl that's at Mississippi State and she's studying the meat science industry, and she wants to go into meat science. Um, so and there there's, I know at West Florida they touch a lot on in their ag program, they touch a lot on biotechnology and they dig deep into that. And so some students that are in our ag programs in Escambia County are going into biotechnology. And so there it's just it's so broad, it's hard to even say because there's so many different options within that field.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, I didn't realize that there were so many different paths. You know, you just think farmer, right? And that's and that's it. But you're right, there's so many. So if a parent is listening to this and thinks that the ag program at Beulah Middle is something that their kid might benefit from or be interested in, what do they do?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

So Beulah Middle is not at capacity, which means that we do have openings within our school. So if you're not districted for Beulah Middle, you can school choice into Beulah to be a part of the ag program. And there's actually a lot of students who do that. Um and then once you're once your student is at Beulah Middle School, um, you just talk to the guidance counselor and try to get them plugged in into an ag class.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Is there a certain time that they need to do that or just at any point just have a conversation with the counselor?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Um so probably like, yeah, probably at any point. You also could send an email to the counselors and reach out to them and you know say that you're interested. Um, but like the the open house and registration, like those um during those times would be a good opportunity to talk to them as well. And and just to say too, um Ernest Ward has an agricultural program. It's a local middle school, so does Ransom. Um, and then we have some great high school programs as well. And so parents do have options to try to get their their students plugged into you know great programs because, you know, like Iskamia County says, we're we're all united for the success of our students. And so there's, you know, no matter where they end up, um there's teachers there that are really passionate about what they're teaching.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

That's perfect. Thank you so much for sharing this today. This was great. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Escambia County Public Schools.