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Teacher wins state award

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

A high-tech, stereotype-smashing DVD has brought Fort Chiswell High School agriculture teacher and FFA adviser Anthony Watson statewide recognition for his innovativeness.
In short, it was a great idea.
At a Virginia Association of Agricultural Educators conference last week in Blacksburg, Watson received the state’s Ideas Unlimited award from the National Association of Agricultural Educators.
According to an NAAE press release, submissions are judged on their “originality, practicality, adaptability to instruction and instructional value.”
“They’re looking for ideas that kind of stand out, which will help other teachers across the nation,” said Watson, a 1996 FCHS graduate.
Watson, who will be starting his fourth year teaching at his alma mater next month, said he actually came up with his winning recruitment DVD idea a few years ago.
After being urged by fellow teachers to submit the concept to the NAAE contest, Watson finally put together an application this spring.
“It was more than anything just to share an idea,” he said.
Fittingly, Watson’s idea is all about sharing.
Watson said he felt like both students and parents didn’t know the wide variety of career options that modern day agricultural education incorporates.
He recalled talking to a senior who said she was doing an internship with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, but thought that ag classes wouldn’t be worthwhile.
“She was like, ‘All you do over there is build stuff,’” Watson said. “And you know it just kind of set me off that there’s really people…that don’t realize what we’re doing.”
While Watson said the national FFA organization offers recruitment videos and tools, he found that the materials failed to connect with local students.
“Those recruitment videos weren’t reaching out to the students – so we decided to make our own,” he said. “When a student sees Joe that’s in their class on the recruitment video they can relate instead of Jim Bob from Indiana.”
After creating the first video a few years ago, Watson and the FFA club officers use the same concept each year, but work to update the footage and add fresh student testimonials.
Right before class sign-up time, Watson and the officers go around to non-ag classes at both the middle school and high school to show the DVD and encourage students to enroll in the agricultural education program and join the school’s FFA chapter.
“The purpose of the recruitment DVD more than anything was to reach out and tell students that we’re just not about cows, sows, plows and building stuff in the shop,” Watson said. “That’s been a really hard thing to change in the past 10, 15 years.”
The instructor listed golf course superintendent, game warden, florist and veterinarian as just some of the jobs beyond farmer that the agricultural program and FFA highlight.
He added that the curriculum has expanded in recent years to include courses like equine studies, veterinary science and biological applications in agriculture.
Watson lets the students pick the background music and many of the pictures for slideshows included on each year’s DVD. He said the videos, created using the Windows Movie Maker program, usually last about eight to 10 minutes.
“I’d call it a group idea,” Watson said, underscoring all the student and tech support contributions it takes to produce the video each year.
The DVDs have worked so well in recent years that Watson said their initial recruitment purpose has become almost obsolete.
The Fort Chiswell FFA club now boasts about 200 students and more than 300 students take agricultural classes – essentially maxing out the program, Watson said.
Still, though, Watson said there’s always another group of students graduating and the need for new ag pupils.
“We wanted to grab those students that were missing out,” he said.
As the Virginia winner, Watson is now in the running to be named the NAAE’s Region VI Ideas Unlimited award recipient. The regional award winner will be announced later in the year with the victor receiving a cash prize to attend the 2008 NAAE conference from Dec. 2-6 in Charlotte, N.C.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .