BY ANDREW BAILEY
BG Independent News Correspondent
An Elmwood alumna has taken a disbanded FFA program at Fayette High School, and turned it into a place students flock to.
Pamela Schultz teaches seventh to 12th grade agricultural education and co-advises the Future Farmers of America alongside Kalley Schaefer, the high school’s other agricultural education teacher.
Schultz was a finalist for the Ohio 2020-2021 Golden Owl Award, recognizing agriculture educator of the year, after nearly 400 nominations were collected across the state, a distinction that Schaefer said she was more than deserving of.
“Over her 15 years here, Pamela made this program what it is today. And she was one of the reasons I came back to it,” Schaefer said.
Schultz began teaching at Fayette High School in the 2006-2007 school year after graduating from Ohio State University. After she was hired, Schultz got to work restarting the school’s FFA program after it was disbanded in the ’98-’99 school year.
Fayette’s agriculture education program consists of three components:
- Supervised Agricultural Experiences: Projects students work on outside of the classroom, overseen by administrators
- FFA: Students compete in contests such as public speaking, animal management, and creative problem solving
- Classroom education
In 2006, Fayette’s ag program had 27 students, — Schaefer was one of them — a small portion compared to 89% of the student body that Schultz said is in the program now.
“Kalley was one of the students who believed in this program from the beginning. And I knew that if there was one person who could teach it with me, it was her,” Schultz said.
Three years later, Schaefer graduated from the program, reflecting a younger version of Schultz and showing a similar aptitude for agriculture.
“I saw a bit of myself in her, she really cared about the field (of agriculture),” Schultz said. “It’s always one of those things that you hope for, impact somebody enough to want to come back and do this job.”
Schaefer went to OSU after high school, then went to teach at Edgerton High School, until coming back to Fayette in the ’18-’19 school year.
She credits FFA for showing her the career path she wanted to take.
“It played a large role in my development and played to my strengths. I think that’s why a lot of future ag educators get into the business. You get to see so many opportunities in the ag industry through FFA, and it opened so many doors for me and reinforced my drive to become a part of it,” she said.
Schaefer said ag education in general, not just FFA, is important for showing students how many of the things they may not put much thought into come from one of the country’s largest industries.
“It shows them how the clothes on their back come from cotton in a field. Cotton needs someone there to grow it. Then it goes to a factory, and that fabric is used for so many things, beyond just clothes. The cereal in your cabinet? It’s about learning where that comes from,” Schaefer said. “It’s about showing what agriculture provides to you. It’s not just about how to farm a field.”
And as the student body began to hear about the program and its benefits, the program grew.
About four years ago, a 2,300-square foot addition was added to the existing ag education rooms to accommodate the growth.
With such a large program in their hands, Schaefer and Schultz put in long hours together to make it function, from attending FFA competitions with their students to collaborating on curriculums. This close working relationship developed a close friendship.
“You might as well call our 4-year-olds brothers. They spend a lot of time together for not being actual brothers,” Schultz said.
Schaefer said she’s excited to come into work every day, with a co-teacher who mentored her in high school and spent “way more phone calls than she had time for” giving her advice and putting her a step ahead of other students at OSU.
They went from a student-teacher relationship, to a mentor-mentee relationship, to being colleagues and friends, a path that Schaefer said helps them be on the same page for what they want to see from their program.
At the core of their two-headed ag department is advocating for the importance of the industry and the value of having ag programs at schools.
“Agriculture is the largest U.S. industry,” Schultz said. “There are so many more things out there than what you typically think of as ag jobs, it’s so much more than just planting corn and milking cows.”
Kinesthetic learning not only lets students have fun while learning but lets them get hands-on in the classroom while learning about a hands-on industry.
“We take what they’re learning at the front of the building, math, English, public speaking, and put those into practice,” Schaefer said. “They’re up and moving too, not just sitting for lectures day in and day out.”
Taking other subjects that aren’t typically thought of as related to agriculture into their classrooms pushes back against a stereotype of the industry.
They both stressed that agriculture is about more than the “typical farm idea.” It encompasses business, marketing, sciences and more.
“A majority of our students aren’t what I’d call a ‘dirt farmer,’ someone that’s actually driving a tractor or having large-scale meat production,” Schultz said. “I’d say less than half my kids are in 4H and just a handful of my kids actually get out on tractors and go farm.”
They have students in the program that are going into dental hygiene, aerospace engineering, and veterinary school. The value in the program for all kinds of jobs is what draws students in, Schultz said.
She said many students have found themselves back in the ag industry after thinking they would never be in it. One of her students is an accountant for John Deere.
“You wouldn’t think that ag crosses over into the office space, but it does. You can be well-prepared for even something like a desk job through ag programs,” she said.
Ag programs are as much about dispelling myths surrounding the industry as they are about educating, two goals that often go hand-in-hand, Schultz said.
“We want to make sure people know what’s happening,” Schultz said. “Pink milk doesn’t come from pink cows and chicken nuggets don’t come from Walmart.”
