SAE Visit #1: Tagging Dairy Steers

On Wednesday of last week, I had the privilege of traveling to one of my seniors farms and tagging his dairy steer. This reminded me of my days of raising show stock and all the hard work that went into it. It frightens me that this seems to be a dying passion, especially in my home county. I would argue that the lessons that I learned from raising hogs and steers taught me more than any single high school course. The purpose of SAE is for students to conduct their own learning based off of their interests and passions. Present day academia has taken some of these passions out of our students and turned them into test stressed spoon feedees.

Mifflinburg FFA

So how does this SAE project help Jacob's future career plans?
He plans to become a vet. To become a large animal vet you need experience with these animals. Jacob has raised literally every animal from chickens to hogs to steers. He sees SAE as a true opportunity to better prepare himself for a career in veterinary medicine.

How has he improved his project over the years?
Jacob has experimented with different feeding programs over the years. He also has greatly improved his judging/selection skills.

What's the next step?

Jacobs next step is preparing for college. It's looking like he will become a fellow Penn Stater pursing his passion in vet science.

I also got the chance to talk with his parents and sister during the visit. It was really cool to meet jacob's support system.

I want to bring that passion back. It all comes down to creating an environment where all students are educated on the importance of agriculture and individuality. We need to get rid of this spoon feeding mentality. SAE is where we can accomplish this. Pushing our students in SAE opportunities can help to align them into a more self directed learning. When students learn about different aspects of their interest areas and see them as being valuable, they will continue to research and want to learn. We need to get students out in their perspective field so they can see why it is important to become educated. (at least in a certain field) I believe SAE, when used right, can be the ultimate vehicle for self driven learning. I look forward to my next SAE visit!