Retrospect: Teachers focused on changing landscape

Twenty-five years ago this week, father and son vocational agriculture teachers were featured in The Commercial Review’s annual Harvest section.
At the time, Bob Lyons had been teaching at Jay County High School for just over three decades. His son, Matt, was just four years into his teaching career at Delta. Both were dealing with the changing landscape of agriculture and its effect on how they approached their classrooms.
Matt noted that curriculum had changed to fit the needs of the student. High school ag education, which had previously focused on livestock and crop production, was expanding. His classes covered topics such as landscaping, house plants, food processing and natural resources.
Bob, who retired in 2006, had expanded his teaching focus as well. In addition to the science of farming, he was including problem solving and writing and speaking assignments.
Taking a break from harvesting soybeans 25 years ago, Bob noted the importance of teachers being involved in the industry.
“You can’t be a good ag teacher if you aren’t involved,” he said. “Our skills I think are improved by our involvement in farming. I can talk from the roots. I know what hard times are.”
Over the last two-and-a-half decades, farming has continued to change. Technology has come to play a larger and larger role, with computers used to monitor livestock and GPS devices guiding machinery through the fields.
Other advances have made information more accessible to educators as well.
“The main deal is this electronic age, how well-connected teachers are with government agencies, Purdue and so on,” said Bob, stepping away from working on a combine to talk for a few moments last week. “There just isn’t any question that you might have that you can’t get an answer to.”
“They go online and in just a matter of minutes they have an answer.”