Professional Development: The Bridge from Where We Are to Where We Want to Be

Recently I was reading a book in which the author pointed out that a bridge is something that connects us from where we are to where we want to be. That made a lot of sense to me . . . and it caused me to think of many ways that this concept of a bridge can be applied. The bridge concept came to me again as I was preparing this article related to professional development for agricultural educators. I was enrolled in classes all through my high school years. Had I had the opportunity to enroll in classes in middle school, I would have. My family (dad and brother) has a rich tradition in agricultural education; so, I knew as a youngster that I would take classes and be a member of the FFA. In addition to my family's agricultural education traditions, I had great teachers. In fact, other than my mother and father, my teachers were the most influential persons in my young life. As of this year, I'm 50... and I still think back on the important life skills I learned from my teachers and my agricultural education professors in the universities I attended. I have been blessed, indeed, with family and teachers who cared about me, desired for me to thrive in all that I did, and saw to it that I was successful. My family and teachers were a bridge for me ... to move me from a developing adolescent to a successful adult who has tools and talent to make a contribution to personal relationships, community, and profession. Reminiscing a bit more . . . when I was a high school student, our agriculture programs were focused on preparation for entry-level jobs in agriculture, mostly production agriculture. During my junior and senior years, my ag teacher recognized that several of my classmates and I were college-bound, so he added an advanced production agriculture class for us. (That too, was a bridge!) Today's agriscience and agribusiness programs have grown tremendously. In fact, I have often made the statement that our profession has, and must continue, to move from the traditional vocational programs of the 1970s to agriscience and agribusiness programs for the 21st century. Today, agricultural education programs serve two masters. One of our masters is the industry. We have a responsibility to prepare the next generations of human capital to meet the needs of an expanding agricultural industry. The agricultural industry is facing a huge challenge to expand food production and distribution systems to feed over nine billion people in the world by the year 2050 ... and do to so with less land in production and fewer inputs of water and nutrients. The agricultural industry is looking to us to fill the human resources pipeline with scientists and business people to meet these needs. For us to meet these needs, we must move the focus of our programs to agriscience and agribusiness. Agricultural education's second master is the public school system. It is rare that public school administrators and teachers get together to discuss the extent to which they are meeting the human capital needs of the industry! However, it is commonplace that school administrators discuss ways to increase student achievement as measured by standardized test scores. School administrators are going to evaluate programs, including elective programs such as agricultural education, on the extent to which they are contributing to student achievement. So, in order for us to ensure our place within the school system, we must ensure that we are contributing to student achievement. Agriculture teachers must become science, math, and reading teachers - not to supplant or replace so-called academic science, math, and reading teachers - but to supplement the good work of the academic teachers in the applied science- and math-based context of agriculture, food, and natural resources. For decades, we have claimed to teach science and math in the context of . …