Kinsley High School
Kinsley, Kansas

Teacher: Dr. Galen R. Boehme

 

Implementing an Agronomy Program into Education

By Mitch Schinstock

 

Even though the drawbacks of seasonal long hours and hazardous conditions exist, a youth apprenticeship program focusing upon agronomy would benefit the students of Kinsley High School at least three ways: Giving experience in the day-to-day operations, learning to identify and rectify weed infestations, and working with local farmers to produce a crop as economically and profitable as possible. 

           

A youth apprenticeship is a program revolving around work-based learning to build a more skilled work force.  Another definition is a way to learn that integrates school and work place to enhance student learning.

           

The proposed program would be in Edwards County and involve the Kinsley High School seniors interested in agronomy.  The students will have the chance to work with the local farmers and learn what problems they have.  This will also allows students to become more social with people. Once the students have worked with the farmers and learned the problems they have the students will assist Crop-Timizer. Crop-Timizer is the name of the crop consultants at Collingwood Grain, Inc.  Here the students will learn how to solve the problems that they learned from the farmers as well as other problems that are frequent and exist in this area. The students will also learn ways to prevent other problems from happening and how to consult the farmers and explain to them what needs to be done in order to produce a profitable crop. After the students go through the learning process, they will then assist the Crop-Timizer’s at Collingwood with everyday procedures and field checking.  This is where most of the students’ knowledge will come into play. Crop-Timizer will do most of the consulting with farmers, but ask for the students’ ideas and input from the areas he or she observed. 

           

Agronomy is the studying of plants, soils, and environment. It is a broad discipline that uses water, soil, environmental, crop, range, and weed sciences. An agronomist gives people advice on how to care for crops and how to make sure the crops produce well.4 In the proposed youth apprenticeship the agronomist will mostly be working with farmers and farm crops. Agronomy is also defined as a crop science relating to the genetics, breeding, physiology, and management of crops.

           

The benefits to the proposed program are as follows.  The proposed program will allow the students to help farmers by assisting them in areas to help produce a profitable crop.  Not only does the student help the farmer produce a profitable crop, but he also helps make sure the crop is produced economically safe. The students will help the farmer prepare the soil for planting, then once the planting is completed the student will make sure the farmer has the right seed population per acre planted.  Once the crop is planted the student will assist Crop-Timizer in consulting the farmer on how to manage the crop and when the crop needs certain herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.  The program will also benefit other youth apprentices by applying what they are learning to better gain the knowledge needed to become a more skilled worker. 

           

The proposed youth apprenticeship program will also benefit those students who are not involved in the program.  If the agronomy program works the school may feel the need to gain another area to start a program with. This will allow the school to provide options for post-secondary training.  A youth apprenticeship may also benefit the community as well.  A youth apprenticeship works to provide a more skilled worker for the work force.  A youth apprenticeship would allow the community’s work force to become more skilled and flexible.

           

The drawbacks to an agronomy youth apprenticeship program are not numerous, but are tough ones to repair.  The first drawback of the program is that it requires seasonal long hours. During the spring, summer, and fall, hours can be very long and tiring.  These are the busiest times of the year due to planting, harvesting, and preparing land to be planted in the upcoming months. This requires the student to be working long hours in order to complete the work and to do the consulting before the weekend. The second drawback is that the student would be working in hazardous conditions.  Many of the farmers will be spraying fields during the growing seasons so one must be aware of the types of herbicides and pesticides that were applied.  One must also be aware of the amount of time they must stay out of the field after it has been sprayed.  The third drawback is the limited employment agronomists have if they are wanting to work with crops and agricultural areas.  There are not many agricultural areas in the United States and of the ones that do exist few are very large areas that have a need for many crop consultants/agronomists. The students entering the proposed program would be limited to mainly agricultural areas only.

           

To overcome the drawbacks of this program will take some work but it can be done. The obstacle of the seasonal long hours is the hardest one to overcome due to the fact that it is just part of the job. One can overcome this by using shifts where they would work so many hours or days and then one can do more of the studying and researching while another student works in the fields. As far as the hazardous conditions, it is part of the job as well, but education teaches the student the dangers of different chemicals and the amount of time a person must stay out of the field after the chemical is applied.  To conquer limited employment, the student wants be able to use the Internet to share their information with others and use technology to help share resources and allow others in non-rural areas to learn from a student’s information while another student learns from theirs. 

Responses To Questions

 

1.               A youth apprenticeship in the area of agronomy allows the student to work with local farmers and crop consultants while learning the trades of the area and becoming a more skilled worker. It also allows the student to gain experience in all aspects of the field to help reduce the obstacles that appear. Our local community is fortunate to have businesses interested in the school-to-work philosophy. Troy Sidebottom owner and operator of Midway Auto Body works well with students interested in auto-body work. Mr. Sidebottom works with students who show an interest in auto-body work. The student works with Mr. Sidebottom and has the opportunity to learn the appropriate skills needed to repair wrecked vehicles.  Dr. Crystal Obee, local dentist is willing to train those interested in the area of dental hygiene.  The student goes through all different kinds of activities while working to help the student learn about becoming a dental hygienist. Medicalodge welcomes the opportunity to work with students interested in health care. Students are able to become Certified Nurses Aides (C.N.A.) while working. Duckwall’s of Kinsley provides the opportunity for manager-in training for local students. Students are allowed to experience all areas of the business from purchasing to marketing, to bookkeeping and banking.

 

2.            School-to-work programs are attracting business interests throughout the state.  Local partnerships are being formed within the state’s seven labor market regions to provide the backbone for the Kansas School-to-Career (S.T.C.) network.  The STC is designed to accomplish three major goals: economic development, education reform, and work force development.  Students in the greater Wichita area are provided opportunities to work and train in large companies. Key business partners include Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Sprint, Benjamin Ranch, Raytheon, and St. Francis Regional Medical Center.

The state has begun to develop an interactive distance-learning network to reach students in rural areas.  High school students will be encouraged to design their own “career pathways” which will help them focus on their career interests.  Areas in Kansas being considered: Health and Human Services, Community and Consumer Service Technologies, Manufacturing and Production-Related Technologies, Financial and Marketing Management, Agriculture and Natural Resource System, Graphic Designs and Arts and Communications. Opportunities will be provided for students throughout the state by using work-based learning through internships, apprenticeships, and job shadowing.  Teachers could have the opportunity to be a part of the learning process by working in businesses during the summer to see how the classroom lessons can be applied to on the job.

 

3.            The School-to-Work Opportunities Act was signed into law May 4, 1994.  The act provides a high quality school-to-work system that will enable today’s youth to acquire productive and rewarding jobs in the work place.  The act also calls for the promotion of a partnership between schools and local businesses as an investment in future work place productivity and competition.  The act provides opportunities for minorities and women by enabling individuals to prepare for careers not traditional for their race, gender, or disability. 

In 1995 the Title II: School-to-Work Opportunities System Development and Implementations Grant To States was enacted. Secretaries of the State Development Grant group were authorized to provide grants for state planning and development of comprehensive statewide systems for school-to-work opportunities. Each grant must consist of a timetable, the planning, development, and description of the manner in which the state will work with a local school-to-work program.  Grants could not exceed one million dollars for any state in a given year.  In order to receive a grant a state must submit an application that gives a timetable and an estimated amount of funding needed to develop a school-to-work system for all students.

 

4.            One business in the greater Kinsley-Greensburg area that tries to provide a partnership with an area student interested in crop production is Crop-timizer at Collingwood. The student would be paired with a trained Crop-timizer man and participate in all activities. The student is given the opportunity to weekly help check the crops of area farmers for seed population, insect infection, weed control, soil moisture, and make recommendations to help the farmers keep costs as low as possible and make a profit. The student has the opportunity to experience many typical and not so typical crop production problems.  Often a new type of weed is discovered that needs to be researched to identify and find ways to eradicate it.  Soil samples are pulled and processed for farmers to help with productivity.  The student has the opportunity to follow the growth of a crop from planting until harvest.  During the off-season, soil samples, fertilization, seed types and new products and techniques could be explored. Besides the above activities, students would participate in communicating with the farmers, making recommendations and figuring out costs. Communication with the school principal would be necessary to evaluate the success of the student. Work ethics, communication skills, and project completion could be evaluated also.

 

5.            Apprenticeships must be outcome-based as those connected with an auto mechanics school.  When an auto mechanic completes his training, he needs to show in his work the skills that he has learned.  An auto mechanic needs to be able to say, “I can fix your car correctly” and actually be able to do so.  After he has finished the required training, he does not want to say he completed the required number of hours needed and have nothing to show for his training.  This would be a waste of the trainee’s time to learn new training to not put this training into use.  Once he has finished the training, he wants to be able show that the training allowed him to gain more knowledge in the area of interest.  Outcome based learning basically means that we can show that we were trained in the skill and that we perform while working in the area we were trained.  In a sense, we are backing up our training by showing that we have received it to put it to use in the work field.  We have not allowed it to go to waste by simply going through the motions.

 

6.            The AFL-CIO is opposed to youth development programs due to child labor laws, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the use of the word “apprentice.”  “The youth apprentice programs are trying to undercut child labor laws,” says Mark Roberts, assistant director of economic research and development at the AFL-CIO.  It is undercutting the child labor laws because of the number of hours required to complete the apprenticeship. The youth apprenticeship does not meet the definition of a registered apprenticeship where a journey level worker is the supervisor. The younger workers might want to become a registered apprentice, which requires three to five years of training. The Fair Labor Act is also an area where the AFL-CIO shows opposition to these programs. The Fair Labor Standards Act is appearing to be promoting youth apprentice programs.  The biggest area where the AFL-CIO opposes these programs is with the use of the word “apprentice.” The word “apprentice” should be reserved for the decades-old registered apprentice program, which is strictly defined by federal and state regulations. The article states that the term refers to the 43,000 highly structured, multi-year training programs that have been negotiated around the country in collective-bargaining agreements.  The main reason the AFL-CIO opposes the programs is because of the way the youth apprenticeship programs use the word “apprentice” and not because of the apprentice programs.  The word “apprentice” is too good of a word to be used for youth apprentice programs.

 

7.            Employers are opposed to youth apprenticeship programs because of the lack of maturity by the youth, the training costs, and the possible violation of child labor laws. Many U.S. firms believe that the high school graduates coming into the working world from high school are not mature enough to do the work and to take it seriously. Many firms prefer a college graduate and resist the three-to-four year hiring commitment needed for youth apprentices.  Few firms are actively upgrading their work forces so they would not have a need for a youth apprentice.  Second, having a youth apprentice may add to the cost of the training for an employee.  In many situations participants are rotated through different parts of the company.  This training requires money. Third, employers with youth apprenticeship programs could possibly be violating child labor laws. Employers feel this way because of the hazardous work some job fields require. Having youth apprentices working might eventually change the insurance regulations from what they are presently today.

 

8.            At the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (CHSAS), the faculty emphasizes a strong academic curriculum that provides students with all the courses needed to attend