It’s one thing to take a bull by the horns. Teaching someone else to do it is another thing entirely – but that’s what one Clarksville agriculture teacher built a farm to do.
Over multiple school years, Northwest High School teacher Megan Clegg developed an unused outdoor classroom space into a small livestock operation with lambs, steer, rabbits and bees on site, allowing students to get their hands dirty and experience a working farm.
Clegg, who also advises the school’s chapter of FFA, has been working toward creating this unique learning opportunity since her first year in the classroom. She said the students loved animals, but they didn’t understand what went into production agriculture – raising animals and crops to provide products for places like farmers’ markets and grocery stores.
“I really made the epiphany, or noticed that the kids were lacking hands-on experience,” Clegg said. “The area around here is somewhat rural, but it's shifting. I don't have a ton of farm kids so, when I was teaching, there was a little bit of a disconnect.”
Clegg said most of her personal ag education came from working on her family’s Arkansas farm, where she learned to raise and show livestock through 4-H and other programs. Other things she learned through her post-secondary education, obtaining a degree in ag business on a pre-vet track and getting her master’s degree from Austin Peay State University before starting at the school.
When she first proposed the idea to the school’s administration, Clegg pitched building a facility on the school’s main campus and keeping livestock there. But district officials told her they couldn’t allow that, and offered her a different solution: using an old outdoor classroom site off of Highway 76.
From there, the ag teacher turned to community members and donors to turn her seed of an idea into something real for her students.
“Then started the legwork of fundraising, so we had to get the land cleared,” Clegg said. “Essentially the community and the ag program has funded the development of the farm.”
Clegg said the project had a “blessing in donors,” helping the school to clear the property, create a small pond and raise a pole barn – finishing the farm in early 2020.
“A lot of networking is what really has made this farm project thrive,” Clegg said. “The community cares on so many different levels. Agriculture is just so important, and people in agriculture understand that, so they are so willing to help and support this program.”
Over the past five years, Clegg’s students have grown to love the farm and other school programs, like the FFA chapter, have started to use the space.
Now, Clegg said, students are out there almost every day – weather permitting – and, for many of them, it’s opened their eyes to the world of agriculture.
Aslin Davis, a senior at the school, has a family connection to the livestock industry but she hadn’t considered that as a career track before participating in the farm program. She had been planning to pursue a career in healthcare, but she’s since changed her mind.
“I realized I wanted to work with animals,” Davis said. “It's always been a passion of mine, so I got into this program, and now I do something that I really love.”
The program gives Davis a chance to have hands-on experience with animals, but also with other elements of agricultural work, like building fences. She enjoys working outside, even when it’s rainy and muddy. Davis, who’s also involved with the FFA chapter, finishes her school day at the farm most of the time. She said doing farm work for school credit is all about putting in the hours.
“Participating, doing actual work, actually showing up, attendance is a very big, big thing for this class, ‘cause if you're not here, then you're not at the farm, and you don't get a grade,” Davis said.
Students can get involved with the farm as early as ninth grade by applying to be on the show team. There’s also a senior year class of work-based learning that allows students to help on the farm.
Clegg said her favorite memories from this program have been seeing students have “aha moments,” like the first time her students showed a steer and got it through an event.
“It's like, ‘We can do this,’” Clegg said. “It's a lot of those moments with the kids of ‘We can do hard things.’”
Maci Cook is a senior at Northwest High School in the agriculture class that comes to the farm at the end of the day. She’s also the FFA president and has been involved with agriculture since she was young.
“My grandpa grew up on a cattle farm, so he kind of influenced me to be a part of it,” Cook said. “[He] just always pushed me to be active [and] help out my community.”
Cook hopes to pursue a career in large animal veterinary medicine and she sees this program as an opportunity to get more hands-on experience with livestock.
One of her favorite memories from the farm is working with the steer for the first time.
“You put the halter on them when they're in the chute, and then you're just leading them until they get used to it,” Cook said. “They get used to having it on their face, being walked, having someone in their flight zones right up next to them.”
Cook has shown sheep for the past three years and showed rabbits for the first time last year at local animal shows. She said doing this kind of work is no walk in the park.
“It's a lot more hard work than you think. It comes off as easy, but it's not,” she said. “It's time. It's labor. Sometimes waking up at six in the morning to get to the shows. It's just all over the place.”
In addition to agriculture, Clegg said her students also learn problem-solving skills and the importance of paying attention to details.
“I think I love it that they have enough confidence in themselves and that I support them enough that they know that they can share their ideas. That relationship piece in education is important,” Clegg said. “When we come out here, I love it when the kids know that they can suggest an idea, and know that I'm listening to what they have to say.”
Northwest High School junior Kai Luczynski lives on a poultry farm, and plans to start his own livestock operation with a friend after he finishes school.
He said being a farmer is a lifestyle, “not something you could take on and off like a hoodie.” And he got involved to prepare himself to work in the cattle trade.
“I think it functions as a stepping stone, a way to get your feet wet into the program and get started in what's going to be the rest of my life.”
