Literacy as It Relates to Sustainability in Agricultural Education (2008)

What is it about agricultural education that we want be sustainable? Is our aim sustain agriculture? What about sustaining student learning? Is our goal sustain agricultural education? Are we create and sustain a growing student population who are literate in and about all aspects of the food, fiber, and natural resource industries? Here's what I'm sustaining as an agricultural educator and father: my daughter's blossoming love of learning and reading, hopefully about agriculture. On a recent Saturday, Carson (my daughter) invited a friend from church over for a play date. Near the end of the date, as I was grilling cheese sandwiches for lunch, Carson and her friend Amelia were sitting on the couch, and both were reading. Carson, just turning two years old, was reading Dr. Seuss's ABC. Suddenly, Carson let out a loud, Kerchoo! (For the letter k, Dr. Seuss writes, Big K, little K. What begins with K? Kitten. Kangaroo. Kick a kettle. Kite, and a king's kerchoo.) To which Amelia replied just as loudly, Kerchoo! This went on for the next five minutes with the two of them laughing and giggling the whole time. And, the kerchoo reared its beautiful head the next morning in church during the homily, much the delight of parishioners seated in the pews behind us and the chagrin of the priest. Thinking about what we know through research in literacy, we know students' motivations for reading, as well as the kind of transferability demonstrated by Carson and her friend, will begin decline at about the fourth grade. This decline will continue throughout high school and most likely into later life. Not coincidentally, this decline in motivation will also mirror for many students a diminishing skill set with which navigate the more complex reading materials that are found in middle and high school classrooms, especially the highly technical language found in the agricultural sciences. For many students the combination of diminished motivation read and the failure of their reading help them create meaning from texts will lead disengagement with formal education altogether. The future for Carson and her friends as readers and learners, the prospect of a negative attitude toward reading and learning is most alarming. Thankfully, Carson will have the opportunity enroll in agriculture courses in middle and high school. So, what about agricultural science education helps us sustain a culture of literature and lifelong learning? And, as an aside, we, all of us involved in agricultural education from teachers teacher educators other professionals at state and national levels, must creatively find improve students' achievement and foster lifelong learning through what we do in the classroom, with SAE, and in the FFA. Thus, I believe there are several aspects related agricultural education that may serve motivate students read and learn, hence become more literate about agriculture. Before we launch into how agricultural education provides a sustainable basis for literacy and lifelong learning, let's review just a bit about literacy. Literacy is much more than the ability read and write (Alvermann, 2001). Sure, in its most formal and basic sense, literacy is the ability read and write. However, literacy also encompasses ways of thinking (Langer, 1991, p. 13). In our society, and especially in schools, literacy has evolved mean the competence, knowledge, and skills (Dubin & Kuhlman, 1992, p. vi) necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual, and in society (National Workforce Investment Act, 1998, p. 15). Thus, literacy is interactive, constructive, strategic, and meaning-based (Steelman, Pierce, & Koppenhaver, 1994, p. 201). To me, this sounds like a definition of how we use various text materials teach our students in agricultural education? Our jobs as teachers are develop career and personal and knowledge so that students are contributing members of their families, communities, and our country, hopefully through agriculture. …