There has never been a sequence of words that have angered more than these, and I am not the only one. As a college student, at times I am almost embarrassed to admit that where I see myself in the next five to ten years is in the classroom teaching students about agriculture. It is often thought that such an answer is not good enough or ambitious enough. Today those who are currently in the teaching profession or hoping to one day become a part of it are looked down upon as if they are not "smart enough" to engage in a "more difficult major" than teaching. Quite frankly, it needs to end.
I respect all majors equally, there is no such thing as an "easy major." I watch my friends in Animal Science struggle through higher level animal biology classes and my Health and Human Development friends worry about their papers due in sociology classes. I support them through all of it, yet when myself or my fellow future teachers are stressed out, our problems are scoffed at.
"Get a real major" is a popular response.
Any college student looking to become a teacher must accomplish an enormous feat. A math teacher must not only learn algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and calculus to full mastery, they must also master teaching strategies that allow students to actually understand what the heck all of those goofy numbers and symbols on the chalkboard are supposed to mean.
As Agricultural Education majors, not only do we need to understand a wide variety of subjects from agronomy and horticulture to agricultural mechanics to food science to environmental resource management, but we need to know them well enough to be able to teach them. To be able to teach these subjects, we need to also master the skills and strategies that relate to understand the way students think and how they learn.
Teachers are the first to be ridiculed for the problems in our education system, insulted for their profession as being inferior while still being expected to cultivate student learning to the point that the student would want to be something better than just a teacher.
Teachers who are able to successfully accomplish all of the above are the ones who inspire students to pursue the college majors they later choose. There aren't many students who simply wake up one day and say "I want to be a lawyer!" without something else motivating them. The reason I am where I am today is because I not only had a phenomenal ag teacher, but other awesome teachers to support my success along the way. We always talk about how important education is, but how unimportant or insignificant the job of a teacher is.
Most of the people who tell me to get a real major couldn't handle a day of teaching if they tried, yet as an agricultural educator, I could probably do a fairly decent job at most things relating to their major. And maybe even teach them how to do it better.
