Techniques Feb 2013 - 22

At-risk Students

photo courtesy of Jessica McAtamney

Students at W.B. Saul High School in Philadelphia preparing
to install irrigation lines to the school’s orchard.

ing, researching and taking the lead in
their education, I feel like we’re successfully educating these young adults,” he said.
Besides in-class leadership activities, the
leadership education circle of the agricultural education model is often delivered
as FFA (Future Farmers of America)—a
student organization that focuses on activities like committee and board leadership,
public speaking, civic service experiences,
and team and individual contests based
on subjects learned in the agriculture
classroom. Unlike other student organizations, FFA is considered intracuricular, not
extracurricular. This means that events,
especially contests, are often based directly
on concepts students learn in class, and
FFA activities can sometimes count for
class credit.
Davies also uses FFA to give his
students opportunities they would never
otherwise have. Just a few months into the
school year, he has already taken them to
a working farm, the National FFA Convention, and has plans in the works for a
community service project.
“We have to show them there’s some-

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Techniques 

February 2013

thing outside of what they know right
now,” he said. “So many of my students
have never been outside of the I-465 area.”
A moment Davies is especially proud
of is when he allowed his ag students
to write their own bylaws for their FFA
chapter. “Typically, there’s a first vicepresident and a second vice-president,”
he said. “The students wanted everyone
to be equal, so they came up with the
titles of ‘vice-president of academics’ and
‘vice-president of community outreach.’ It
was great to see them take ownership and
figure it out like that.”

Outside of Classroom Projects
The final component of agricultural education, experiential learning, requires that
each student has a long-term, out-of-class
project that relates to agriculture. Projects
might take the form of a lawn-mowing
business, growing vegetables or producing
eggs and selling them, or working for a
community agriculture-based business or
organization.
Experiential learning can be challenging for urban students because they don’t

usually have land they can keep animals
or grow plants on. Additionally, students
with backgrounds like those at the three
Indianapolis schools also often lack the
adult support outside of school to carry out
extensive projects like starting a business.
“We are 100 percent free lunch,” said
Davies. “Many of my students have only
one pair of clothes, come from a broken
family or have a family member in jail or
prison. I have so many students who want
to succeed and be successful, but they
don’t know how or have never been told
that they can.”
“Our vision for that is more of an
internship-type approach,” said Ernest
about the experiential learning portion
of agricultural education at Emmerich
Manual. None of the three schools has put
the final circle of the model in place yet.
“Eventually we would like to start a relationship with agriculture-based businesses
in the area and place students there.”

Long-term Results
The long-term goals for the three Indianapolis schools aren’t just wishful thinking. Although urban programs are rising
in popularity, some large urban school
districts have had agriculture programs
for many years. For instance, W.B. Saul
High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been an agriculture high school
since it opened in 1943. The face of the
school has changed over time to keep pace
with preparing students for what the state
mandates as high-priority careers, but the
focus has always remained on agricultural
education.
Seventy-nine percent of W.B. Saul’s
students are minorities, and more than 73
percent are classified as economically disadvantaged. Yet students at W.B. Saul are
above average compared to other Philadelphia public schools in every measured
category of student achievement, including
performance on the Pennsylvania System
of School Assessment. Just as importantly,
they rank in the top 25 percent of all
Philadelphia public schools in three of the
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Techniques Feb 2013

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