College Kids
Sixty-five Dearborn Park fifth graders experienced their “first day of college” last spring on the SPU campus.
A swarm of 65 fifth graders descended from classic yellow school busses to meet a near equal number of Seattle Pacific University education majors. Once they paired up, the elementary students and college students headed to the campus theatre for a special lesson from Stephen Newby, associate professor of music. He fired the kids up with vocal exercises and words of wisdom: “The great thing about college is that you have to take initiative,” he emphasized.
Like most fifth graders, these students from Dearborn Park Elementary and Zion Preparatory Academy hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about college. But because of the SPU Visit Day, the South Seattle 11-year-olds have a valuable head start for the future. Most of the children’s families are not college-educated, according to Ellen Punyon, principal of Dearborn Park Elementary. “Many children haven’t even been outside their neighborhood before,” she says. “Being involved in classes, seeing the campus … this is big.”
Fifth grader Randy inundated Hilde Holgate with college-related questions: “What’s your major?” “What happens if you’re late for class?” “Do you get your own computer?” Hilde laughs.“I’m pretty impressed with how curious this little guy is,” she says. Hilde ‘09 enjoyed the event as a student so much that she came back after graduation to participate again.
Lunch in Gwinn Commons, SPU’s cafeteria, was arguably the most exciting part of the day. An informal survey revealed that pizza, ice cream, and French fries were the most popular choices. The students’ next stop was the SPU gym, where physical education faculty and students ran a number of fun activities involving bouncy balls, Frisbees, and cartwheels.
The day wrapped up with a science class that explored sound through a variety of hands-on experiments. For the grand finale, an SPU student blasted a remix of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” through a 10-foot flame tube. The fifth graders watched in quiet awe as the flames danced to the beat, pitch, and volume. Then the percussion began. The drums sent the flames shooting up and down, and the room erupted in gasps and giggles.
“They’ll be talking about this now until the end of the school year,” Punyon says.
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