农业+生活方式
农业工作:教育
发布于2018年5月7日12:00 AM
Meet Matthew Darby, Agriculture Education Teacher at Northside High School in Houston County.
你是哪里人?
I'm from Calhoun, Georgia which is Gordon County in Northwest Georgia.
你在农业方面有什么经验?
My family has been in Northwest Georgia for as long as anybody can remember and I'm 5th or 6th generation farmer. My father had chicken houses and actually had sheep for a while. We're in the cattle business, my dad, my uncle, the family. 我爸爸还拥有一家锯木厂. So, we're very diverse in the aspects of what we do, being animal and timber based.
Where did you go to college and how did you decide what you would study?
I participated in livestock showing growing up ever since I was in 4-H and FFA and then all through high school. I ended up getting a scholarship to go to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M学院做家畜评判, so I spent two years there and got an associate's degree and then transferred to the University of Georgia because I wanted to get a 4-year degree be able to use my Hope Scholarship. I’d always wanted to go to UGA so when I got there I was really involved. I was a part of Block and Bridle [an Animal Science club], 牧民协会的, 和学院FFA. 我是农业教育专业的, 所以我选择了适合我的课程, but also what I would want my future students to learn about.
So, did you always know you wanted to be a teacher?
I kind of figured out by the time I graduated high school that that's what I wanted to do. My ag teacher was a big influence on me and then I had two uncles that were extension agents so I was kind of getting it from both sides. 我希望能够教育人们, 不管是小孩还是大人, about where food comes from and how agriculture impacts everyday life. If they don’t have that knowledge, they’re really missing out. 我想帮助教育后代.
你们班的学生是如何分配的? 是选修课吗??
It's an elective class that students choose to take. 在休斯顿县, every middle and high school have an ag program, 更具体地说，对我们来说, we have two feeder middle schools for Northside High School. Middle school teachers try to get students involved at that level so that way when they get to 9th grade they’re already familiarized with the program and are therefore more inclined to sign up for these classes. Basic ag science is where high schoolers start, they learn a bit of everything. 由此激起了他们的兴趣, they can become involved in Future Farmers of America (FFA) or study anything from animal science, 植物科学, ag)力学, 森林和野生动物.
Is there a growing interest in students taking these classes?
Numbers are steadily increasing because the middle schools are very big help in exposing students earlier. 在我们有中学课程之前, it was harder to get the interest of students in 9th or 10th grade, but now we have a steady flow of kids who are interested.
What is a student's base-knowledge of Agriculture when they take your class for the first time?
A lot of kids that come into an ag class don't know a whole lot about it, especially in this area since there isn't a lot of farming on this end of Houston County. It's a whole new experience for them, totally different from anything they’ve ever been exposed to.
Are you able to see a growth in the students of their understanding of Agriculture from the beginning of the course to the end?
Absolutely, especially since this is my second year here I’m starting to see it. I had a student last year that was in my basic ag class and he hardly ever talked but he did his work. This year he's decided he wants to try showing an animal and he's a part of several of our Career Development teams. He got incredibly involved and really realized that this is what he's interested in. It's a really neat thing to see a student advance from a basic level of understanding and then continue to dive in and figure out that this is what they want to do with their life.
What's the biggest misconception that students have coming into a class like this?
The biggest misconception I think kids have is that it's not all “sows, 我们有时会说，犁和牛, 这不是他们认为的“旧时代”. 这比他们意识到的要先进得多, students have no idea that there's so much technology that’s a part of this industry; that if you’re a farmer, 你也是一名营销人员, 银行家, 会计, 广告商, 还有兽医，这只是其中几个例子. You have to have a little knowledge of everything. They also don't know that there are so many different career paths they can take that don't entail them being an actual farmer. They don't really grasp that agriculture and farming touches everything not only in the state of Georgia but across the country.
What's your favorite thing about teaching agriculture?
I enjoy making an impact on students and they don't even realize it. [To me] it's a big deal because a lot of these kids, 尤其是FFA孩子, 你和他们变得非常亲密, and they don't realize you're helping to guide them through life and high school. You try to help them get ready for life outside of this. I like being able to advise them and guide them and be able to show them something that they otherwise wouldn't see if they weren't involved in this program.
What’s something you learned growing up on a farm?
努力工作会带你到任何地方. 不管生活有多艰难, 如果你努力工作并且心中有一个目标, 只要你下定决心，你就能实现任何目标.
