Amherst College seeks to pump up local elementary students for college
1
AMHERST - About 40 Amherst College student-athletes and coaches came to Crocker Farm Elementary School Wednesday to encourage the children to think about higher education.
Principal Michael Morris started the event last year, based on research showing that what 10-to-13-year-olds believe about going to college is a good indicator of whether they will actually go.
"They're impressionable at that age, and we can have an impact on their perceptions of themselves," Morris said.
About 200 children in third through sixth grades participated in the hour-long session. They formed about a dozen groups, with the younger children talking with Amherst College students about tennis, lacrosse, soccer, crew and track. In the gym, they tried handling lacrosse sticks and heaving shotputs. Some Amherst professors also talked to the children about chemistry, economics and psychology.
Morris opened the program by telling the children that everyone who wants to go to college can.
He told them that the elementary school he went to focused on teaching children to memorize rather than on how think. When he got to Amherst College, he said, he found that professors wanted to know what he thought.
"They pushed my thinking and made learning a lot of fun for me," he said.
Morris said his participation on the track and cross country teams helped him believe in himself.
Amherst College is an elite school, but it's also something the children can aspire to, he said. "They have a rule: if you can't afford to pay to go, the college will pay for you to go," he said.
Jon Thompson, Amherst's men's lacrosse coach, told the Crocker Farm students that his elementary school didn't have the diversity of wealth, race and religion that their school has. He called his time at Brown University "one of my absolutely best experiences."
"It's not if, it's just where and when you go to college," he said. "It doesn't matter if you go to a place like Amherst College. There are places for everyone. It's what you make of education more than anything."
In one small group, older girls met with seven members of the Amherst women's basketball team.
"Playing a sport is a fun way to let off steam and not to think about school so much, and not just have one thing going in your day," basketball player Livia Rizzo told the girls. "You learn about leadership and working as a team. Whatever sport you like, that's awesome, keep with it."
At the same time, the women encouraged the girls to be diligent in their schoolwork. "Knowing multiplication is incredibly helpful for everyone," said Rizzo.
Afterward, Morris said, several students told him they want to be like the student-athletes they met. One who was in the psychology group said she now knows about different parts of the brain and wants to learn more, said Morris.
"They identified themselves as future college students," he said.
Nick Grabbe can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.
