I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hidayad. And this is Al pellets, a podcast featuring tips for ag teachers.
We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Hey Al pellets, welcome back. This is Brian here with Becky and Mike. We are by the Al pellet, you know, and today we're going to talk about that special type of wildlife that's called a middle schooler.
You know, I feel like it should be like one of those nature shows when you're talking about and they got the narrator in the background talking about middle schoolers. That's a special time like the way they're greater in their native habitats. They smell like they're. I have a cat.
No, I love them. I love them. I used to have two of my own and now they've now they've grown. Crikey.
It's a wild one. But we have with us our own wildlife expert for middle schoolers, Chris, Oklahoma State University. Chris, thanks for being back with us here on Al pellets for sure. Excited to be here before we get going too far into this.
Why don't you remind the millions of out pellets listeners who you are and what you're doing up there in the great state of Oklahoma. So Chris, I'm a faculty member and ag education here at Oklahoma State University. In a former life, I was a middle school ag teacher and got to work with those wild creatures in their wild habitat. It was a great time.
And so we've recently done a little bit of research to be able to learn a little more about them and kind of some of the best practices moving forward. It's like Safari images. I'm fully invested as metaphor. I always knew you were a good man, Chris.
And now I know why. That's right. So we give people a little bit of an overview. We're going to talk about middle schoolers.
Chris, what is the topic for today? Yeah. So we're really going to talk about SAE in middle school and think about the perceptions, barriers, opportunities for implementation of middle school SAE programs. A little bit different beasts.
We know the students are a little bit easier middle schoolers. I was transitioning to it. Thanks for the help, Becky. And so we know middle schoolers are a little bit different, but also education as we move it into the middle school is a little bit different.
So what did you find when it came to perceptions and barriers? And how does that look different at the middle school than it does at maybe at the high school level? Yeah. So, you know, all joking aside, I think when we get to the basis of this, middle school students are different.
They're at a very developmental stage of life. And so we have to think about them differently and how we can relate to them, how we kind of meet them, where they are in terms of their age, their maturity, their exposure to agriculture is very different than where we are with high school students. So when we're working with these middle schoolers, especially when it comes to an SAE project, we have to think about those types of things and how we can best help them connect and make a relevant project to be able to move forward to develop some ag literacy, develop some interest in agriculture and our programming, and hopefully keep them around into high school programs beyond that. You know, we worked with a bunch of middle school ag teachers across the southeast to kind of develop a list of barriers, best practices, and just current perceptions of these programs.
Overall, middle school teachers hold a pretty positive perception of the potential impact of SAE when we think about it in the middle school program. So they see value in it, but you know, we just have to think about how do we get students involved? How do you get a middle schooler that knows nothing about SAEs, perhaps even nothing about agriculture involved in that? How do we make real life experiences for middle school age students?
You know, how can we teach them responsibility and help them grow in some of those soft skill areas with record keeping and goal setting and things like that as we think about middle schoolers and how we get them involved in our programs? Yeah, I think it was really cool when you're talking about this. I think you've raised some great questions about looking at what are we trying to accomplish when we're talking about SAEs with middle schoolers? I think one of the things I hear you saying is maybe SAE with middle schoolers is not just a, you know, it's not SAE light from the high school version.
You know, what you're seeing here, it may need to look a little bit different than what's happened at the high school. What are your thoughts? What do you find about that? Yeah, so, you know, I mean, we many of us have seen the SAE for all model and kind of the rollout of that over the last few years and what that looks like, but most of that is really still developed for high school-age students, even though there are some exploratory type opportunities as we think about those new SAEs.
We really still have to think about what that looks like for middle schoolers. And when we think about this piece of implementation, a lot of it comes down to the barriers that teachers identified, you know, and middle school students, because of the these that they are, oftentimes, you know, lack of motivation. They don't have, they can't drive yet, you know, we're not dealing with 10th, 11th, 12th graders that are going to transport themselves. So, we have to rely on parents to get them to and from these types of experiences.
Many times there's financial limitations, more so with middle school students than what we deal with high school students. And more than anything, they don't know how to plan, they have a lack of maturity. These are real things that we're dealing with as we think about six, seventh, and eight graders. So as a teacher, we have to really kind of think about how do we get them involved in a way that is going to be engaging and exciting and be able to do it in a supportive environment that we get students working.
And while we did some research on it, we found the perfect answer. We just identified that moving forward, we need to think about potential strategies. And so we really kind of developed some best practices based on what teachers were currently doing that seems to be working. You know, and a lot of this revolves around thinking about the inter-curricular nature of a complete education program.
So making sure that we are including SAE as integral part of our classroom experience. And at a middle school level, that may be dedicating some class time to that SAE and how we implement that. Really focusing on those foundational type SAEs, you know, exploring careers and perhaps exploring some research opportunities there. And thinking about the soft skill development as a really developing this complete person as a middle schooler and working to help them fight through the jungle.
We're going to keep going with this at the end here. You know, get that out of the wilderness. We need to think about how we develop those soft skills through SAEs and really help utilize the facilities that we have. So if we have a greenhouse on campus, how can we use our greenhouse as an opportunity for student SAEs at the middle school level?
If we have a shop, is there an opportunity for students to engage in some type of shop project or shop-based SAE? But really thinking about those types of opportunities that exist within the confines of our own school, I think are important as we really kind of move forward with what this looks like. I think even just thinking about that opportunity and responsibility for engagement with middle schoolers, because I think the statistic or whatever, that just keeps rumbling in my mind, is that when kids lose interest in school. Yeah.
And it's middle school is one of the points. It's not the only point. But I think about where Agit has a cool opportunity to contribute to a lover's school and a love for learning and an interest in careers and where I'm going to be beyond this, because part of that middle school drop off is that school got irrelevant. School just became this set of things that I needed to memorize.
I played the game where I didn't. And I think it helps us step out of that. It's not just playing a game anymore. These are real life things.
And I think that relevance that SAE adds, that Agit programming adds, when it's done really intentionally and well, really can make a difference for our middle schoolers. And we don't just think about it as Agit Lite or SAE Lite. I think you talk about that too, though, Christian, is talking more about it, is the importance of bringing this into the classroom and being more intentional. What I heard you saying was to do some of those life skill development things, I would say most middle school and teachers are already doing, but doing that very intentionally under the umbrella of SAE and let students know that they're doing that.
I think that's a big recommendation you all came up with. I hope our middle school actors hear that. This is probably not the go turn the student loose and go to the old whole project anymore. This is using class time intentionally to focus on the goals of SAE and calling it SAE, so students know that's what they're doing.
Yeah. And I think we also know that middle school is often a time where students are starting to develop ideas and perceptions related to future careers. And so if we're not getting these types of things in front of them, we're missing out when we think about developing future students for the Ag workforce. And so SAEs are a great opportunity for that.
And while we got lots of great ideas from lots of awesome middle school teachers, the lack of consistency and implementation was one of the biggest things we saw. Lots of people were doing lots of different things, but one of the big things from teachers was like, we just don't have a clear roadmap as to what this looks like. I almost wonder too, if there's not a need to develop a new type model or a model that's specific for middle school programs, especially as we think about further down the road as fifth-rateers are potentially now being involved in FFA and elementary school-wide programs in some states, that goes beyond scope of this study. But when we're thinking about all of that broadly, we have to think about what this looks like and how we really develop that interest and sustain that interest over time.
Yeah. And I really appreciate that, Chris. And I think one of the things that continues to echo in my mind and you said it very early on is the fact that we need to meet the students where they're at, particularly at the middle school level. And so they are at a different stage of life and development.
And I think a lot of us that were high school teachers had kind of a cookie, perhaps a cookie cutter approach of where we started our SAEs, where we started a lot of things and that's just not going to work at the middle school. And I think you raised and identified what those issues and challenges are, but also some best practices around helping our teachers meet students with where they're at and what their needs are at the middle school level. Yeah. And I think a lot of this comes down to as well.
The teacher is making good connections within the school and community to help support all of this. So to help get that student buy in that is essential as they move forward with implementing this in the classroom, they need to have administrators on board. They need to have other teachers that are supporting this process and understanding the value of an SAE, even in a more foundational or exploratory type manner. You think about community and what kind of community support exists to really be able to help optimize these school-based enterprises that students could be engaged in without having to take a ton home now.
This is again trying to build that foundation for them when they move into a high school program, hopefully, to really develop their own home project or work-based learning experience as they get older. But that's not relevant or realistic for most middle schoolers to have at this point. Well, one of the things I was thinking here is we've talked on this podcast several seasons ago. We talked about the difference between an SAE and the proficiency award, how they are related, but they are different.
I think I got looking back at my own mistakes and I made it probably confusing those two as I was setting up with my students. I think one of the things that really came out here with your work and you're talking about the middle school level is we really need to show how those things are different. That you're really going back to what the purpose of the SAE is and focusing on that with those middle school students and then getting them ready to build those life skills up and not necessarily just for proficiency award. Yes.
I think that becomes really important as we reflect back on some of those other barriers that teachers mentioned. Just at the middle school level, there's often a lack of resources, there's a lack of home support because parents just don't necessarily know what agricultural education is. They're not sure what FFA is or an SAE. There's often less program funding dedicated to middle school programs.
So the ability for teachers to spend time and dedicate that time outside of the classroom is not necessarily always feasible. So really trying to come up with a way to make this a very cohesive environment and a supportive nature not only for the students, but also to make this more manageable for our teachers because ultimately we want our teachers to be supported and feel like they have something that they can do in this process. I know we've talked a lot about some of the challenges and barriers, but I also went through a little bit of the highlight. How exciting this is.
As you pointed out, this is really a tool as more and more places across the country are getting involved with middle school based ag ed and doing this is a real tool that we have that I think sometimes we see as a problem like how we're going to do SAE with middle school. You've really begun the conversation here. How do I use this as an exciting way to get students engaged? In the same way Becky brought up here, there's a lot of studies out there that talk about the importance of that age group informing their identities for careers or even understanding of what kind of careers do we look for.
So this is a great opportunity to use this SAE model that we have appropriately for this age group to do some pretty powerful things. Yes. I think I'm excited to have this conversation and hopefully we get some teachers that have any more ideas and really think about how to be able to run with this and make something practical into their programs. The other thing that makes me think about, and I know it's outside the scope of the study, but we're the other conversation is what's the implications for high school ag education as we begin to figure out and make better use of middle school programs?
Yeah, I think that's a great conversation. When I taught 6, 7, 8, 3, many of my students went into the high school program after they finished with me. And some of them saw that as kind of the starting pad to really launch their careers in ag and really think about where they were going with it. Whereas others, it seemed like they got to high school and they reached the point of, wow, there's so many more opportunities, so many more things I get involved in.
And we lost them. They had stayed in ag program throughout high school. And so when we think about what this looks like trying to develop this to be more exploratory in nature, I think it helps to reduce perhaps some of that burnout that sometimes we see of running middle school students so hard. And by the time they do that for three or four years, they're done with it.
They're ready for something else. So, Kritos, we kind of bring this in for landing. But if you're talking to some of the middle school teachers that are out there listening to this podcast, what would be a couple of things that you'd asked them to be thinking about as they're really trying to learn from your own study and trying to work with essays, with this middle school program as we're working in the sixth, seventh, eighth grade. And we really kind of lump that all together.
But I think also some other work you did in our conversations know that a sixth grader is different than eighth grader. There's a lot of changes happening there. So maybe talk a little bit about how that changes over that middle school career too. Yeah.
So, I mean, the growth in maturity and all those things between sixth, seventh, and eighth grade is crazy. You know, sixth grader leaves the classroom in May and when they come back in August as a seventh grader, it's like a completely different person. And the same thing happens the next year when they come back as an eighth grader. We hope you're good.
I don't know what happened, but here they are. And so, as we think about that, we know that middle school programs are unique because of that. Not saying that there's not growth that happens as high school students as well, but perhaps it's not quite as noticeable sometimes. You know, it's smaller changes that you see at the high school level, whereas in those middle grades, we really see significant changes in student development.
And so, I think it's important to recognize that as middle school teachers and really know that there are support structures out there to be able to do this. And you don't have to be a exact model of the high school. You know, you are not a mini high school program. You are a middle school program and there are differences.
And I think acknowledging that and working to the strengths of what you and your students can do is really important when we think about middle school programs. And so, you know, hopefully some of these best practices and things will help either new programs get established or current programs, maybe kind of figure out how to fit SAEs in. Because I think when we talk to middle school teachers, they're saying, I don't know how SAE fits. Where does this go into the program and how do we do it?
So, hopefully some of these can become part of that conversation starter and help teachers to be able to address what SAEs and middle school looks like, you know, regardless of what students are at or how they're helping them try to develop. Well, Chris, this has been a great conversation. Really appreciate your all's work. This whole thing, I'm really appreciating that we're finally as a profession, spending a little more time focusing on middle school, as you know, from your background in Florida, as well.
We've had middle school programs in Florida for, you know, 40 plus years. And we've kind of just kind of been doing it. And now we're like, I'm really appreciating this work. We're trying to see how do we really take advantage of that particular stage of development to build a program around that to make it work.
And the work that you guys have done here with this study is really important with that. And I hope those teachers around the country that are listening to this, that are engaged with middle school, to use this as a starting point to have that conversation about how do we use this foundational piece of SAE in the middle school program appropriately without just trying to do it, and not that we're doing it wrong with it, but how do we really take advantage of what SAE can do for those six, seven, eight, three, so Chris, thank you for being with us today here on Alpelts and sharing your great work with us. Thank you all for having me. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Alpelts.
Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the Alpelts saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Alpelts Tips for Egg Teachers.