Forty years working with adolescents has given Bill Kinsey a rare insight into the minds of teenagers, most notably their desire to learn but also to create mischief.
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Mr Kinsey is the deputy principal of Tocal Agricultural College, Paterson, a position he has held for the past 27 years and one he will soon relinquish when he retires at the end of this year.
The highlights of his 40-year teaching career involve seeing students come with little working knowledge of farming practices who go on to become leaders in their field managing successful corporate or large family farming enterprises.
“Some of the students have finished up with PhDs while others have become veterinary surgeons, ag teachers, you name it they have done it in agriculture,” he said.
“So it has been great to play a part in their training and then to follow their careers.
“I will miss that part of my job and the wonderful dedicated staff I work with.”
One part of his career that has provided him with more than a few headaches is caring for 100 adolescents 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Most of the students who attend the college live on campus and Mr Kinsey reckons he has seen just about anything a group of males can get up to.
What boys think is fun, those in authority might describe as havoc.
“Individually the boys can be great but get them in a group and wow they can get up to some mischief,” he laughed.
He also joked he hadn’t lost too many over the years.
“I love working with the students but I have to admit I won’t miss the discipline side of the job,” he said.
Mr Kinsey said the strength of Tocal College lay in allowing students who do not want to sit behind a desk for a career to be trained for a job that was hands-on, outdoors and challenging.
“For kids who want that sort of work agriculture is a great career choice and there are plenty of jobs available and good career paths for those with the skills,” he said.
“Employers are always looking for good staff at all the different skill levels – so students should consider agriculture as a career.”
Mr Kinsey grew up near Ipswich, Queensland and spent a good deal of time on his grandparents farm at Boonah.
He attended Gatton Agricultural College before gaining his first teaching position at Burdekin Agriculture College, Ayr – where he established a small dairy to provide milk for the college.
Finding suitable milkers for the tropics was interesting with the herd consisting of Australian Milking Zebus – a cross between Brahmans and either Jerseys or Holsteins.
“They could be hard to handle – very temperamental which was a challenge and provided me with a very good learning curve,” he said.
From the tropics Mr Kinsey moved to Tocal in 1984 as a lecturer in dairying before becoming the deputy principal.
During his 27 years as deputy he has seen a great change in the composition of the student body.
“It has gone from predominantly male to today where three quarters of the students are female and it has gone from students who grew up on farms to mostly city based students, “ he said.
“People reared on farms these days either get a trade or go to university, they don’t come here like they did in the past.
“But what we are doing is taking students reared on the coast and training them for inland jobs and that is a very significant achievement – we are bucking the trend where every young person heads to the city and the coast.”
As for his retirement, Mr Kinsey expects to remain close to the college and promote its achievements and also look at doing voluntary work in the Maitland community.
