Hunting for relevancy in our schools
Hunter education good step, but schools could do more
By James A. Swan, Ph.D.Teaching hunter education classes in schools is a good step toward removing the stigma against hunters — but schools could do much more.
On March 7, West Virginia lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that would allow hunter education classes to be offered in schools where at least 20 students express interest.
Word has it that the Governor will soon sign the bill into law.
Certified instructors, a number of whom are game wardens or active or retired public school teachers, teach hunter education. The 8- to 10-hour class is comprehensive, has numerous excellent visual aids, and offers practical information about wildlife ecology and identification, as well as firearms safety.
And, there is no need to have a firearm with live ammunition brought onto campus to teach the class — although live-fire training is preferable — and is especially appropriate when a growing number of schools are sponsoring shooting sports teams to participate in interscholastic shooting competitions like the NSSF Scholastic Clay Target program, as well as the 4-H Shooting Sports program.
There is a national movement afoot to recruit new hunters, as 90 percent of today's hunters are 35 or older.
Among the flock of recruitment efforts is the phenomenally successful National Archery In the Schools Program.
Another is the Families Afield program the US Sportsmen's Alliance, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the National Wild Turkey Federation, have championed, allowing youth to hunt with adult mentors before taking (and passing) a hunter education class.
To date, 21 states have already enacted Families Afield-style bills since the program was launched in 2004.
Virginia is the latest and 25th state to add an apprentice hunting license. In the first two years of Michigan's apprentice hunter program, 30,000 kids bought the new license. Many states are also lowering the minimum age for kids to obtain a hunting license.
Perhaps these efforts will slow or stop the steady decline in hunter license sales numbers, falling from 19.1 million in 1975 to 12.5 million in 2006. But hunters are still a minority group, and their future ultimately hinges on general public opinion as well as the overall number of hunters.
In my community we have a spring Ski Week break when there is no school. In many rural communities across the nation, schools still close on the opening of deer season — why not teach Hunter Education in the schools?
Statistics show hunting is safer than skiing. It's a lifelong form of outdoor recreation, and wildlife management is a legitimate subject to study in schools — a lot more relevant than much of the curriculum.
My only criticism of the West Virginia law is that the hunter education class alone is not enough: Hunting is a subject that ought to be integrated into the entire school curriculum.
Many schools offer semester-long classes in shop, auto mechanics and home economics. It's sad such classes have been cut in some schools as those practical-skills classes address the practical needs of students, introduce them to careers, and enable them to save money on real-world needs covered by the classes.
Much of what is taught in the name of "college prep" in our schools has little relevance to our lives after school: When was the last time you used calculus or organic chemistry?
Teaching hunting as part of the school curriculum is a sound idea, if for no other reason than it is a part of life enjoyed by millions of Americans. It also has a tangible effect on the economy, as does as recreation and wildlife management.
Since 1997, 11th-grade students in Alberta have been offered a hunting and game management course as part of the wildlife branch of Career and Technology Studies. The course includes how to safely handle archery equipment and firearms, as well as develop shooting proficiency, and proper handling and dressing of game animals, as well as wildlife management. (It sounds like a course I was once involved with.)
In the late l960s, when I was the environmental education curriculum coordinator for the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Public School System, at Pioneer High we offered a year-long high school field biology elective called "Conservation."
The class was about practical biology and included actual management of a 10-acre woodlot and shrubland, plus a one-acre pond on school grounds stocked with bass and bluegills. Fishing was allowed, but only catch-and-release. In the winter, the pond became an ice skating rink.
Today Pioneer High School does not offer the conservation class, but the very active Ecology Club still manages the woodlot and adjacent shrubland and field. In fact, part of last year's Ecology Club program included a prescribed burn on school grounds to preserve prairie habitat.
Ann Arbor Huron High School also has a managed natural area on the school grounds, and the campus is right next to the Huron River. Both offer many opportunities for hands-on study of natural ecosystems, and recreation and conservation are part of the curriculum.
The curriculum for the Conservation Class at Pioneer High included hunting and fishing, studies on air and water pollution, field trips to nearby areas, and visits from wildlife biologists. The class had a stigma of being a "general" class, and not a college-prep course, but a number of students who took the class went on to college majors in wildlife, fisheries, forestry or conservation.
The Pioneer High conservation class, however, was not the only exposure to hunting in that school system. The environmental education program then and now is K-12. Each grade level K-6 goes on at least one field trip a year to a different natural area within an hour's drive.
When I was at the helm, over 90 percent of the kids went on one of these trips each year, and the fifth grade classes went on a trip to the Dexter Lakes Hunt Club, which offered released pheasant hunting. Concepts taught on that field trip included carrying capacity, wildlife habitat requirements, and management of habitat for special species.
I should add that William B. Stapp, who later became the first Director of Environmental Education for UNESCO, originally designed this program.
The Ann Arbor Schools environmental education program is still alive and well. The fifth-grade trip to the Dexter Lakes Hunt Club has been replaced with a trip to the Waterloo Recreation area, where hunting is allowed, and other field trips may include fishing.
Obviously hunting is controversial, but so are many subjects taught in school: political science, current affairs, evolution, sexuality, etc. Debates exploring pro and con positions about hunting would be a valuable learning experience for all students. Far too little pro-hunting information ever seems to get into schools these days, and any hunter these days is a spokesman for the sport.
If you are a hunter and can't come up with some decent answers to the question "Why do you hunt?" then you need to get out the books and study until you can. (Obviously if you read my books your answers will be better.)
Hunters are an endangered species so long as general public opinion can determine whether hunting should be legal or not. It's time to bring hunting out into the light, where people can openly discuss it — and the public schools is a perfect place to do that.
Think back to when you were in high school. How much of the biology, math and science that you had to take then is something that you have used in your life since then?
Studies show that kids who hunt or fish tend to have greater knowledge levels about wildlife.
Clearly, teaching about hunting in our schools would inject a valuable dose of relevancy into a curriculum that is often barely associated with the realities of daily life.
James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
