I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Al Pelletz, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.
We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Welcome back, Al Pelletz fans. It's Mike, Brian, and Becky here by the Al Pelletz. And we are fortunate today to have Trey Easterly with us.
Trey, welcome. Oh, thank you for having me. And certainly Trey is not new to our podcast, but Trey, why don't you reintroduce yourself for those that may be new listeners out there? Yeah, absolutely.
I'm so happy to be back. You guys keep inviting me back. So I don't know if that's a question of the work that we're doing here or the people that I'm working with or a question of your judgment. So we'll take it and run with it.
You just said no yet. Oh, I didn't know that was an option. No, I'm so excited to be here. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Florida in Agricultural Education.
So I am a teacher educator. I work with our pre-service teachers here. And I do a lot of fun and interesting research on how teachers plan for instruction. And kind of took on this project related to how principal support agriculture teachers in the school and had some really cool conversations with principal.
So I'm excited to talk about that today. Trey, one of your co-authors has joined us as well, right? Absolutely. So Dr.
Brian Myers is here. I really was hopeful to get our other co-authors. We had Sebastian Glindo. I want to give him a shout out.
He was our methodologist and he knows qualitative research very well. And so he worked with us on this project. And then Natalie Faran at Virginia Tech, she worked on this project while she was here at the University of Florida. I tried to get her on the Al pellets podcast, but having the three of us together on that might have been just too much to contain in the 20 minute time slot we're going for with this.
So it would have been a challenge, but we certainly would have been up for it. So we're changing things up with this podcast. So Brian can have a dual role. He can not only be one of the co-hosts, but he can also serve as one of the authors and talk a little bit about this study.
So to kick things off, let's talk about the study and I think it's important for us to think about Al pellets and about principles because of the value that they take with that. So kick us off, Trey. Well, so this study was a really cool and interesting conversation where you know, you have a lot of conversations with folks that just say that they're so frustrated that their principal isn't letting them do this or isn't supporting them within their program. And we really wanted to flip the script on that and have some conversations with some principles and see what their thought of agricultural education was.
Why aren't we talking to principals about how they're supporting agricultural education in their school and how they see that fitting into the school? So that's what we did with the study. We did some interviews with some principles and we wanted to talk to really good principles who have been stable in really, really good programs for a long time. And so we worked with our screening process to make sure that we were selecting folks that have been at schools at really good programs and just had an hour long or so conversation with them about what they're doing to support teachers within their schools.
Could you chat a little bit more about what that good principle is? You talked about the length of time they were there. But there are other things that you kind of thought about it in terms of identifying those really good principles. Yeah, that was tough.
And that's something that we went back and forth on kind of as a research team about how we're going to do this. But really it kind of went back to we started with really good programs and asked them, hey, does your principal meet these criteria? Are they good supporters of you? Have they been stable within the schools?
Do they share a vision in a school that is in alignment with what you're doing within your program? And it was interesting. Some of the teachers came back to us and said, you know, this principle is not a great relationship. It's probably not what you're looking for with the study or they haven't been here long enough.
And we had to eliminate some folks from the study just because they didn't kind of fit in that parameter. We certainly have our own perspective as teachers of what principles do and how they support programs. And this kind of flips the script a little bit and you're talking to principals. And so what did some of the principals have to say about how they see themselves supporting programs and how it fits within the context of the entire building or the school that they're in?
Yeah. So one of the first things that we really got to and one of the big things that came out of this was the purpose of the school and then how agricultural education kind of fits into the purpose of the school. And so it's interesting to them. They had kind of differing views about what is the purpose of the school and how agricultural education fits into that.
But one of the big things is that they saw the purpose of the school is to prepare students to do something after they lead the school. And so no matter what it was when they graduated and they left that high school, they wanted them to be prepared for whatever the next steps were. So it was really about career preparation for them. But there was also this piece about wanting students to get involved and be active.
And they were, you know, it was interesting. But one of the principles that we talked to was really into athletics. You could tell that was kind of his bent. He really supported athletics, but he saw agricultural education as a great way for those students to get involved that weren't going to be the full back on the football team.
And so their job and their purpose and what they're doing is try to find a spot for every student within the school to become active and be involved. I think one of the things that really stuck out to me was these principles, they were very knowledgeable about what was happening in the school-based ag ed program. And I too, they were not just the FHAC chapter, but they knew what was happening in the ag ed classroom. And in a conversation, it was kind of a two-way street.
The principles seemed to go what was present and saw those things happening. But the teachers also did a good job of communicating back about what was happening in the classroom. And it wasn't just the competitive event. It was part of it.
But they did those things. And the teachers were very knowledgeable about what the principles goals were. And the teachers then talked to those principles about how the ag ed program was meeting those needs and what the principal was willing to accomplish in their school. And Trey mentioned that a lot of this was about post-school preparation and what was going to happen after that.
And that hands-on, that skill-based learning was very important to the principals. And they saw that as being an important component of the school. And they wanted to make sure that every student had an opportunity to engage in that. And they were very concerned what was happening in the classroom and to make sure that students weren't engaged in it and were learning those particular skills.
The thing that comes to mind is you're talking about this as that part of our ag teachers' creed that recognizes, I realize, I'm part of the school system. And I think the piece of that, when you talk about being able, Brian, you talk about the two of both being able to articulate that purpose of the school, what are some of those implications for teachers for me saying, man, I'm really frustrated with my principal. I don't do what I want. I don't do what I want.
How do they walk back on that conversation and think about situating themselves and situate like how do they find how their principal is thinking about their purpose of the school and then ag ed's purpose within that? Yeah, I think it goes back to that conversation about what are your goals and here's how ag ed can fit into those goals. I go back to a conversation I had several years ago in a previous role where I talked to a teacher and he said, you know, I had a conversation with principal. I said, I wanted to start a welding program and principal just told me no.
And didn't give me a reason why I didn't really say anything. That's probably a lesson in leadership about how to tell someone no, but I kind of unpacked that with that teacher and said, well, think about what you asked. You asked them for a 10 to $15,000 check, right? And easily when you're starting a welding program, even if they had the welders in the school, but just getting the gas contracts in the metal and all of those things, and it's opening up the school for liability within some of these things, it's a big ask.
And so he came with that ask about starting a welding program and didn't really have a why or a purpose for that and an overall goal. And so we talked through, you know, how you can get an advisory committee to kind of help you look at, okay, does, is there a need for welders in the community and can you build towards that? How does this fit into the total agricultural education program and fit the overall need of the school? And so when you can go back with that ask thinking clearly about the goal and from the principal's perspective, then you're going to be able to get kind of the resources and the things that you need.
That principal perspective brings up a great point of all the things that I think back to my on time as an teacher, the things I didn't have to think about because that was my principal job, or my vice principal's job. And so even when you bring up liability, certainly I have to think about that, but I don't have to think about it the same way my principal does. And having to take that pause to say, wow, what is my principal have to process with that ask? I think really hopefully situate this.
I mean, not only go into that conversation better, but probably go in with a little more empathy in the conversation and on the other side of like, I got this note that I maybe didn't like, but I think I can see it a little better if I think about kind of what my principal has to process that I may not have to because of the roles that we're in. And if we think about one of the principal's roles in the school, it's to manage the resources. And that's the human resources of the teachers within the school, the students that are there, time that's allocated within that school, and then the financial resources of these programs. And they have to make those decisions across all of their programs with everything in mind, with social studies, with English, with reading, with industrial arts, with agricultural education and the high school basketball team and the chess club.
And all of these things are pools and pushes on all of these resources that principals have to negotiate. And so as the principal is playing chess with those pieces and thinking about the decisions that they're making as they go through today and how are they allocating those resources, most of these principles that we talk to, and these were really good principles again that have been there and are functioning at a high level and playing really high level of chess as they allocated those resources, we're thinking about the goals of the school and their ultimate goal as a principal. And they were willing to move those pieces and move those things around the resources when they saw agricultural education fitting those goals and those needs. And I think we talked about this before.
You know, again, we kind of have our own language, our own vocabulary. And these really high functioning, high supportive principles, they learned a lot of that. But one of their suggestions in our conversations to him was that advertisers have to understand and have to come to principals with the principal's language and understanding those things and understanding their goals. One of the one of these principles that we talked with that was shown to be a excellent principal.
It hasn't been all sunshine and lollipop with every single act teacher that was at that school. They've had to let some folks go. And it was because the teacher was a good teacher but just refused to talk to the principal and talk about how their program was meeting the school goals. And it was like, I'm the act teacher, just trust me, let me do what I want to do and do my own thing.
And that's just not going to work. And I think that's one of the biggest things that we find that is a challenge. And I don't have it in front of me. But I think, if I remember correctly, all of these principles were fairly large schools.
You know, Florida high schools, we're going to talk, you know, they're going to be 800 plus students, you know, a couple of them around 1000 students, which are going to be bigger than what I've used in the Midwest, Midwest schools, we were 200, 300 schools, something like that kind of a deal. These were folks that had a lot of responsibility but wanted to engage with these teachers and understand in making those decisions like Trey was talking about, they had to understand how it was meeting the larger goals of student learning and student achievement. That's what they were trying to accomplish from there. Absolutely.
And the other piece that was really interesting is we had some conversations with principals, some new Ag education really well, some did not. And the ones that did not, they want to go support students and cheer on the great things that students are doing. It's pretty easy to go to a volleyball game and see that the team that's wearing your school colors scored more points on the scoreboard than the team with the other points. And you can sit there and buy popcorn and soda and watch that.
You can't go and sit at the stands at the forestry contest. It just doesn't work like that and you wouldn't know what you're watching if you're watching. And so they don't really know how to support that. And so it helped when teachers were very explicit about what the principals could do to show that support rather than just sending them an invitation to the banquet to say like, hey, these are the two or three key events through the year that we have that really shows our students and sends a loud message that you are a champion of our program.
And so helping them, teaching them how to support students because they want to do that. They want to help out and see all the cool things students are doing. But it's AgEd is a tough world to jump into, especially if you're not from this and you'll speak this language. I feel like that's been a theme across the latter half of the season of how to make the implicit explicit.
How do you really get intentional with some of those things and how do you really kind of articulate what the things are? And one of the things that kind of surprised me when I had this conversation a couple of times was a lot of time we hear, well, my principal really upset the number of days I miss the school or upset the number of days the students are miss the school. And they mentioned that there was one person I remember his comments specifically. I know it's always better for all the students when Mr.
So and So was in the classroom because they all get a chance to learn from him that day. And they appreciate that. It wasn't a show stopper if the teacher would communicate with them why it was important for the teacher to be at the certain location. If the teacher, again, if the teacher went and said, well, I'm the other thing, guys, I have to go with there because it's a competition.
That did not carry much water. But if they could show how and really get communicate with the Ag teacher, it's important for me to take these students here because they're learning these skills and they're accomplishing these things that we're trying to get with our school and what your principal's trying to do, that made it a whole lot easier. He says, I don't have a problem with the teacher doing that. And again, it's about that communication with the principal and the Ag teacher.
And did owe for professional development. And really need to be at the Summer Ag teachers conference that they don't care about the Summer Ag teachers conference. They don't see the political and social things that happen there. But if you say, I'm going to this professional development event because I'm going to learn these things and get these skills that I can bring back to our program, that's just going to carry so much more weight with those principles.
Yeah. One of the things that I think about around this is just flipping our lens a little bit and thinking about it from the principal's perspective. And we talked about that earlier on, but as Ag teachers is to help the principal help you as the Ag teacher. And to open, we may push back on that.
And the other thing that comes to mind is that everyone has a boss. And so we're reporting to our principal because that's our direct report. But he also has accountability and people that he has to report to, whether it's the superintendent, the school board and other needs. And so how can we help him frame that message and talk about what those values are and what the needs are in a language, in a context that he can help make the case to the people that he has to report to as well, he or she.
One of the other things I was interested in, they talked a lot about their professional associations. And your comment there might maybe think there was some talk about how do we help the principals understand the role of the teacher associations and the role of these professional developments. And part of that is the association meetings. And so it's important that a state leader and I think some of like FLAE or in NWA groups and their states communicating with principals at large about this conference going on and the purpose of it.
But that also keeps us honest that we have to make sure that we're providing substantial and really good information putting together good conferences. But I think that would be one service that our state teacher associations can do is send out an email communicating here's about the actual conference going up across to all of the principals of the state. Yeah, not all of them are going to read it, but it's that communication piece and I think that's something that can be done at the state level to kind of help engage a conversation at the local level. Good point, Ryan.
And since we're talking about professional development, I think it's I kind of want to bring this up and talk about one of the outcomes of this paper. So as what happens many times you recommend in a paper in the recommendation section, the professional development should be conducted on insert the thing that you studied, right? And so we recommended that and for the last three years, Ryan and I, Dr. Berry and a few other folks here at the University of Florida put on a professional development opportunity for principals at their state of the convention.
And it's just kind of given them a space and an invitation about where they could show up and participate because, you know, if if a teacher brings their principal along to FFA convention, then they have to kind of point them in the right direction and find things for them to do and, you know, they're kind of keeping up with them, but this kind of gives them a purpose and something to do. And we've had some really awesome conversations with some principals over the year and it's made some impacts on some programs. So I'm really excited about the work that we've done on that. And I just want to underline that, y'all.
We held a workshop for principals and they showed up. Now, I'm not going to tell you we had a standing room, only 800 people in it, but we had folks, they showed up. And so the days are saying, hey, no, guys, I'm going to come to this kind of thing and the quality of the conversations. And I know I have learned as much from the conversations with the principals in those workshops setting, they probably learned about us to do that.
And I think that's really going to provide a big benefit. But then also we talked about the poor with professional development, that community that's built, the principals are talking to each other because again, you've got some folks that have been here for a while and some that are brand new principals or some that were, they were an assistant principal, somewhere, they're now the principal. What place they were at assistant principal had a horrible HAG program, which was even worse than having no HAG program. And so they have this anti-AG thing going through.
And so they can talk through these kind of opportunities. I really encourage teachers associations and university folks around the country to really be thinking about hosting an event like Trey put together and led coordinate for us at the FFA convention. We picked FFA because just what Trey said, a lot of time they want to come and they want to see their kids because they can't watch them do the contest, but they can watch them go across stage, see the pretty lights and the screaming and the loud music and cheer for them, but also gives them a chance to come and really have a good PD with it as well. It was a really cool idea and some great things have been happening there.
I think that's probably a great place to start wrapping up this conversation around PD and I hear that it needs to be a partnership and Trey, any kind of concluding thoughts that you want to share before we wrap up? Well, I think the big thing and the big takeaway that we have here is just when you're having those conversations with your administration, take just a minute to figure out their perspective and see how they're kind of seeing things. I think that's the big takeaway that we have here and what we did with this study and what we kind of took away from it. And if there's anything that I can do to help you if you want to put on it a bit like that in your state, I'm happy to share all of my stuff with you.
So please reach out. I think that's well put. And I think the only other thing that I would add is that if we look at education as a form of CTE and what we do in schools across the country, it looks different than anything else in the building, whether it's other CTE, fine arts, other teachers and what they're doing and how even how we as a group of fellow AIG teachers get together and know one another and collaborate. And so I think we do have to translate and think about what that language is and help our principals help us and be able to communicate that so that we can be effective in that way.
And so I think this is a great work and a great conversation that we need to have to think about those other support groups that are around us and how principals can be resources. So Trey and Brian, great work. Thank you for sharing that with us today on All Pellets. Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me steal your host to be on my side of the discussion, Tom. You can add it. You hope you've enjoyed this episode of All Pellets. 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. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by The Out Pellets saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Out Pellets, tips for AIG teachers.