LEXINGTON, Ken. — Selected as the top new vocational teacher of 2017, Jacob Ball grew up on a hobby farm with horses and one cow – baling hay, repairing tractors and raising animals – and loving it.

 

But if it were not for a friend who recommended a vocational agriculture class, he would’ve taken computer science instead. Once he took that first vocag class at Nelson County High School in Bardstown, Ky., he put his hand to the plow and never looked back.

 

Now he works passionately to direct nontraditional farm students and farm kids alike to ag careers in science and technology.

 

Having returned to his home high school at Nelson County to teach for four years, he applied for the award – and received national recognition from the Assoc. of Career and Technical Education (ACTE). “ACTE New Teacher of 2017” recognizes teachers with 3-5 years of experience in instructing business, technology, mechanics, ag and other vocational classes.

 

“Jacob is very committed to the ag program. He is innovative and his class is immersed in technology. His students are learning 21st century job skills,” said Nelson County High School Principal Shelly Hendricks. “He was always going to training workshops and spent hours outside of school.

 

“The students responded positively to him. He built relationships.” In so doing, Ball was following in the footsteps of his voc-ag teachers at Nelson County: Daniel Mattingly, Stacy Vincent, Matthew Simpson and Josh Mitcham, who invested in their students. “They encouraged me and pushed me to do things like speeches, leadership, being an officer. Their classes were engaging and rigorous. You had to come ready to learn, not waste time,” Ball said.

 

Now he is in his first year of teaching food science in the ag program at a unique vocational school, Locust Trace Agriscience Center in Lexington. Out of a total of 10 instructors, seven are ag teachers with a different emphasis, and each of them advise the 225-member FFA, Ball explained.

 

“The kids love it, especially the farm kids, because they get to spend half their day on an 85-acre farm,” said Ball, noting the school is growing in size from 300 this year to 400 students next year.

 

The farm includes an equine center, full-service veterinary clinic, barn, mechanical shop and laboratory.

 

In his class the children, the majority of whom do not come from farms, learn to make canned strawberry jam, formulate bread dough and churn butter, followed by a snack of bread and jam. In the process, they learn to collect data, record physical and chemical changes and notice how heat changes the food.

 

“There are all kinds of careers in getting the commodity from the farm to the store and to the plate, such as nutritionists, ag engineers, food production development, USDA inspection, food safety and hazard analysis,” Ball said.

 

But his choice career is that of ag teacher, and his best moments have come as students have decided to tread the same path he has. “There is a need for ag teachers. We barely have enough teachers to fill open positions,” he explained. “Every year we continue to recruit high-quality teachers who will make the curriculum rigorous, using science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to add value to the programs. It would be amazing if every student could farm, but that is not possible. So it’s important to educate them on other career options.”

 

Even if students do not enter an ag-related career, Ball hopes they leave his class with a better understanding and appreciation of how food is produced.  “I’m in an urban area. The students donot have prior experience with livestock.

 

Because of social media, we face misconceptions and a negative spin on agriculture. I try to take advantage of teachable moments when a student brings up a question,” he said.

 

Ball likes to stop his lesson and let that discussion build. “If you’re not having fun, the kids aren’t having fun, I can tell you that. If I start coming home in a bad mood, I will not continue teaching, but that hasn’t happened yet.

 

“I love my job and I’m excited to teach some of the brightest, most intelligent and inquisitive minds and to attract as many of them into agriculture as I can so that the U.S. can continue to be the biggest ag producer in the world,” Ball said. He lives in Lexington with his wife, Lindsey, and their yellow Labrador, Reese.