Harry Franz

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1955

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Education

Abstract

Today facts are demanded by everyone and for every purpose. To some extent, every activity of our life is governed by the results of a study of books and periodicals. This is true of a farmer cultivating his land, feeding his livestock, or purchasing his machinery. It is also true of persons in other vocations; the minister, the banker, the public official, the educator, the business man, and many others. When the vocational agriculture teacher has a problem he consults a “Handbook on Teaching Vocational Agriculture” which is a collection of organized facts based on experience. The efficiency in teaching vocational agriculture depends upon the training of the teacher and the availability of accurate information necessary in the process of teaching. It seems that the general impression among many of the academic teachers, superintendents, principals, school boards, and the general public is that the teachers of vocational agriculture are in a “chosen field”. This may be due to the fact that the vocational agriculture teachers are employed on a twelve month basis and consequently their yearly salary is higher. Usually they have fewer class room instructional periods during the actual school day, but they have on-the-farm instructions and evening classes which are unfamiliar to most of the faculty and general public. Another reason for this impression may be that the teachers of vocational agriculture are able to become better acquainted with the parents and home life of their students, due to farm visits. Some principals and academic teachers do not approve of field trips or judging trips during the school day. The writer taught vocational agriculture from 1947-1950. During this time and many times since he has often heard comments similar to those mentioned above. He wondered whether they were due to envy and lack of understanding, or whether perhaps there was some truth in these statements. He has met many vocational agriculture instructors and found that most of them are well satisfied in their profession. He thought about this evident satisfaction and wondered whether there were some facts available to explain why most of the teachers of vocational agriculture were happy in their field. He also wondered whether he could find some data on why others often spoke of vocational agriculture teaching as a “chosen field”. If he could find answers to his questions and uncover some facts they would be of interest to others beside himself. Any individual interested in entering the field of teaching vocational agriculture could gain much useful information if he had access to such material. In South Dakota the only institution of higher learning approved to train vocational agriculture instructors has been South Dakota State College at Brookings. Any facts concerning this field would naturally be a matter of concern to the Agriculture Education Teacher Training Department of this institution.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Agriculture -- Vocational guidance

Description

Includes bibliographic references

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

58

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Rights

No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-NC/1.0/

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