Nancy Harris

In the early 1990s, the wife of a local Stanislaus County farmer, Gertie Zehrung, convinced me that I needed to attend the California Ag in the Classroom Conference in Fresno. California Women for Agriculture paid my way. Dr. Lucas Calpouzos, former Dean of the School of Agriculture CSU Chico, was the keynote speaker.

After listening to Dr. Calpouzos, I was hooked! In his keynote address, he explained that around the world, children and adults alike spend a major portion of their day growing or gathering food. That activity alone determines how people must spend their lives. Yet, here in the United States, agriculture has become so efficient that one farmer produces enough food for well over one hundred people. Thus, the rest of the population has the opportunity to spend their time contributing to society in ways other than growing food.

The light bulb went on! Because farmers grow food for me and my family, I can devote my time to doing what I love to do—teach! I realized that I had an obligation to all of my students to show them the fundamental importance of agriculture and the source of their food and fiber.

Thanks to my attendance of this conference, my whole focus of teaching dramatically changed. I converted to a hands-on, agriculture-aware, curriculum. In my third grade class every subject, including physical education, became alive, meaningful and exciting by using agriculture themes. One of the first things I did was some research and write a nutrition play called Try It, You'll Like It. Following that, I developed board games to enrich math and reading. From there, I moved on to another game that focused on cooperation and could be used with any subject matter.

With the encouragement of my mentor, Gertie Zehrung, we started Hughson's first Ag Appreciation Day in 1993. Each grade level focused on certain ag commodities. Over thirty "adoptive" farmers with their classes rotated through a variety of demonstrations given by fifty well-prepared presenters. The month prior to Ag Day we had ag-related story writing contests (Plough and Anvil Award), ag theme art contests, gardening, square-dancing, ag relays in PE, and a sheep dog demonstration.

CFAITC has afforded me so many opportunities. One of my favorites was attending the Summer Ag Institute. I was fortunate to be awarded Summer Ag Institute Grad of the Year in 1995. Because CFAITC recommended my name to Sunkist Growers, I was one of six teachers nationwide to attend the Washington D.C. Experience for Teachers sponsored by the national Council of Farmer Cooperatives. During the next three summers, I traveled to Anaheim, Nashville and Snowbird, Utah working with high school and college students involved with ag cooperatives.

One of my most rewarding experiences provided by AITC was the training given in order to become a Certified University Student Teacher Presenter. Over a period of thirteen years, professors at CSU, Sacramento, CSU, Stanislaus and the University of the Pacific (UOP) opened their classrooms for presentations showing their students how agriculture could enrich their curriculum. I found these student teachers to be eager for practical, hands-on materials to use with their students. I handed out six to eight sample units I'd used in my own classroom. In these sessions they participated in activities and played ag games. To see these adults get so excited and enthusiastic was heart warming. They wanted to share these ideas and the AITC Resource Guide with their students. As a result, I received many notes, calls and visits to my classroom and to Hughson Ag Days.

After one of the university presentations at UOP, a young student approached me. She had tears in her eyes. She told me that her father had worked in the fields all of his life. She said until then, she hadn't realized what an important job her father had. She was going to make sure that in her own classroom, students would honor the hard work of those who help provide our food.

I feel the University Student Teacher Program is the most valuable of all the CFAITC programs and impacts new teachers at a time when they are hungry for ideas, materials and a meaningful hands-on style of teaching. Not only do these young teachers become ambassadors for agriculture, but they are also the voters who see the value of keeping land in ag production and how important the use of water is to sustain our way of life in California.

I retired from teaching in 1999, but Ag Days and agriculture education efforts are still going strong in Hughson. In 2006 while handing out Resource Guides at the State School Board Conference in San Francisco, one of my former student teachers, now a school board member, and her superintendent asked me if I was interested in a part-time position teaching their GATE program with an emphasis on agriculture. I came out of retirement and for five years had the wonderful experience of working with students grades 3-5 mostly in ag related areas. Now I have retired again, but before leaving, we established a school garden.

I am so grateful that twenty some years ago Gertie Zehrung insisted that I attend my first CFAITC Conference. That event not only changed my approach in the classroom, but also opened up a whole new exciting, life-long adventure for me. Gertie planted a seed in my life that produced a hunger for more and better ways to show children and adults how agriculture not only feeds us, but also opens up to each of us the freedom to make choices to better our lives in the future.

From the beginning of my involvement with CFAITC, I learned that there is so much loyalty and support within the ag education community. Thank you California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom for a wonderful experience and congratulations for twenty five years of inspiring teachers throughout the state. I look forward to participating in the state conference in 2011.

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