Where do new farmers and agriculturalists get their education?

     A very simple answer to the above question would be either a higher education institute or a government agency. I would first like to start with young farmers and producers. They begin their knowledge, just like I did, in CTE programs in high schools and so forth. CTE stands for Career and Technical Education. As you can probably guess, these courses are classes about what I consider, necessary skills in our world today. Some CTE courses include, Agriculture courses, Natural Resources,  Family and Consumer Science, Health Occupations, Business and Management, Construction and Carpentry, Auto Mechanics, among others offered. These courses, I would say, are the back bone and driving force of our society today. These are the courses who spark passions in students in the fields of trade, industry, health, agriculture, and food and domestic arts. Not everyone may know of these courses, but they have been around for years.

     Many people, among other educators in the fields of the common core subjects, may say that CTE programs are a thing of the past, and all that our students need are reading, writing, and arithmetic. Well I am here to tell you they are wrong.

     First of all, we will always need people such as doctors, nurses, farmers, producers, mechanics, food administrators and conservationists. As well as people who know how to fix our cars, and build us homes. Career and Technical Education programs provide a basis and an introduction to these above fields as well as a starting point to be able to obtain a career in any of them.

     Another example of why people should not cast away CTE programs is because who is to say every course does not teach or provide a starting point for all careers. Does it not take science courses for any type of scientist to get the starting point they need? What about history, who is to say it is not a career education class that educates people so that they can better make sure we do not make the same mistakes in the future. In every career, you need to know some basis of reading, writing, and mathematics. So who are we, to shun CTE courses just because of a general level of knowledge, that they may be "second hand" education courses. When in reality, every school subject is the starting point of some career in our society today.