FFA launches LifeKnowledge program

By JULIET BRISKIN | Staff writer

Oct. 21, 2004 - For members of FFA, returning to school in the fall means gearing up for another year of learning and building life-long friendships. Yet, while summer may have meant a break from the classroom for students, the National FFA staff and local chapter advisors were hard at work on the various programs designed to fulfill the mission of the FFA.

On Sept. 27, RFD-TV aired a live, hour-long special on agricultural education, the FFA organization, and its LifeKnowledge program designed to help FFA advisors and teachers in their quest to better educate their students. The program featured Bill Stagg, FFA national marketing and communications division director, and Seth Derner, FFA national education specialist.

According to Stagg, 250,000 FFA members returned to school this year and the national FFA staff has been gearing up for their return. He explained the purpose of the national staff is to provide support for the local chapters which are the key to FFA success.

"The chapters need all the care and guidance, they need the materials that make a chapter successful and most importantly they have to deliver on the FFA mission," asserted Stagg. "As most people know, FFA is here to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success. Our (national office) efforts go into creating the programs and the opportunities that will help those students succeed, but it's the FFA advisors, the teachers in the classrooms, that will make that happen."

Armstrong pointed out that while FFA is a national organization, each chapter and community has very different and unique needs.

Stagg agreed, pointing out that FFA has grown and changed dramatically since its founding as an all-male organization in 1928. "Today we have FFA in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and both men and, happily, women are benefiting from this program," he explained. "The great news is that what began as a primarily a rural program, has now expanded to urban and suburban environments."

Derner added that with all the changes in agriculture throughout the years, it is the local teachers that have allowed the FFA organization to expand and succeed.

"Local teachers are the core of our success," stated Derner. "We as a national organization are only successful when every local high school and middle school that has an agriculture program FFA chapter is meeting the needs of their community, their school and their students. When they thrive, we as an organization thrive."

LifeKnowledge is the latest program developed by the National FFA organization to provide teachers and FFA advisors with the tools necessary to guide and educate their students.

"With LifeKnowledge we have taken the best of what we have learned over the years about how young people grow, develop and learn and have for the first time put it into instructional materials for teachers," explained Derner. "With this program a teacher isn't out on their own. They have material in their hand that they can use to teach lessons on responsibility, or create lab activities around team work or appreciating differences in other people. For the first time we are able to articulate how we grow young people in the area leadership, personal growth and career success."

Derner continued, explaining that by January 2005, they expect to have 6,000 agriculture teachers and FFA advisors trained in the LifeKnowledge program.

"The training is pretty intense," stated Derner. "We have designed a four-and-a-half-hour workshop that puts teachers through all sorts of activities that model the best way to teach the LifeKnowledge skills."

According to Derner, the feedback from teachers that have gone through the training has been overwhelmingly positive.

"We have had a lot of teachers come back and say that this training has really rejuvenated their excitement and passion for teaching," he said. "The energy we have seen in our collective community of teachers has been outstanding."

Stagg added that FFA and LifeKnowledge are very powerful programs and that by fostering leadership skills, personal growth and career success in young people, they are creating individuals who are capable of achieving anything they wish.

"LifeKnowledge breaks down the three terms leadership, personal growth and career success and utilizes their basic components as the foundation for its curriculum," he explained. "Our website is full of information for anyone interested in FFA and LifeKnowledge and is a great place to start. We have people at National FFA whose entire focus is to make local teachers and local programs a success."

Following the show, Ann Blaha, Texas State FFA membership services coordinator, commented on her experience attending a LifeKnowledge training program. She expressed confidence that once Texas teachers attend a training session and begin implementing the program in their classrooms, they will find it to be an invaluable tool.

"The training was a vary dynamic and interactive process," asserted Blaha, "and it would have been just as engaging for students as it was for us. The teachers that attended the training with me were very excited about the quality of the program. They commented continually about how user-friendly LifeKnowledge is and how the applications presented and the program examples were, for them, ah-ha moments if you will."

Blaha continued by emphasizing that like any new program, it will take time for LifeKnowledge to reach every classroom in Texas. "Our teachers are constantly looking for new ways to improve their curriculum, but new programs take time," she stated. "Once teachers have the opportunity to use this program in their classrooms and they see the positive things that happen as a result, LifeKnowledge will become a mainstream item in our curriculum."

For more information on LifeKnowledge and FFA, visit www.FFA.org.