By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Many kindergartners at Pine Street Elementary School know what they want to be when they grow up, and now thanks to a recent Kinder College Festival, they have a basic idea of what they need to do to attain those career goals.
Last summer, Kent Smith, now a senior at Presque Isle High School, and guidance counselor Mary Ann Warren were among only 12 student-educator teams from public schools nationwide that were selected as Bezos Scholars and invited to attend the June 26-July 2 Aspen Ideas Festival at the Aspen Institute in Colorado.
While on the Aspen Institute campus, student and educator scholars attended seven days of seminars, tutorials, lectures and debates. They shared meals and scholars-only roundtable discussions with some of the most provocative thinkers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs and change-makers from around the world. Each day, dedicated leadership trainings helped them understand themselves as leaders and prepared them for the challenge of creating sustainable Local Ideas Festivals that would transform their schools and communities.
For their Local Ideas Festival, Smith and Warren opted to hold a Kinder College for area kindergartners.
“I remember discussing ideas back and forth with Mrs. Warren on the plane and when we landed, we started investigating different sources and talking to different people to see what options would be viable,” said Smith. “The Kinder College really stood out and Scott Voisine [dean of community education at the University of Maine at Fort Kent] has been a big help because he actually started the Kinder College program and that’s something that we expanded into the festival format. We’ll also be able to continue inserting it into the curriculum as the year progresses.”
Voisine said he applied for — and received — a grant from the Davis Family Foundation about six years ago to develop college career awareness materials for a kindergarten and first grade audience.
“With the Kinder College, we worked with an elementary education instructor and their students, and we researched materials, developed lesson plans, wrote a curriculum, and developed kits for every kindergarten class in the St. John Valley,” he said. “On an annual basis, education majors from UMFK go into these classes and present some lesson plans from the kit. Mary Warren and I have known each other for a while, and she called me because she was interested in creating some kits for Presque Isle schools and also to create a fair around this kit. That’s what we’re doing today — we’re watching this kit become an actual event.
“It’s always hard going from a kit full of materials to an actual activity, but I think Kent’s done a wonderful job. It’s really neat to see the different generations of students — we see little kids, high school kids and college kids working together which I think is great for the community, and it also shows little kids that post-secondary education is attainable,” said Voisine. “One of my goals in my educational career is to promote higher learning, and I think seeing this come to fruition as an activity is incredibly rewarding, not just for me but for the students and for the faculty who helped pull this together.”
Smith said the idea of the Kinder College is to “empower children and be able to inspire them to reach for their goals and show them what they need to do to reach those goals at an early age.”
“One of the things we don’t have too much of here in northern Maine is guidance in the elementary school level,” he said, “so we wanted to get that knowledge out there, get them thinking about what they want to do and how they can do it.”
The festival, which was held March 20, featured an introductory talk and fashion show in which high-schoolers portrayed various career professionals including a police officer, a veterinarian, a doctor and a construction worker. Then the kindergartners attended three different sessions.
“One session was led by University of Maine at Presque Isle physical education majors who focused on physical activity by showing the children the steps of college and how to get through it,” said Smith. “Another session featured a representative from the Finance Authority of Maine who did a kid-friendly presentation that teaches about money management, and the third session was led by the high-schoolers and we talked about what they wanted to be when they grow up, helped them write that on a paper medal that they could wear, and had them draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they’re older.
“The real goal is to get the kindergartners thinking about their future and keeping in mind their future goals as they go through the next years of their education,” he said. “Things have gone really well, and I think the kids are getting a lot out of it.”
Warren was equally pleased with the festival.
“This is a terrific event,” she said, “and I’m thrilled to see how interested the kindergartners are; they’re like little sponges … they’re sopping this right up.”
The Kinder College, Warren said, is like planting a seed for higher education.
“This is Aroostook County and we are farmers and we know that you have to plant a seed if you want to have a good harvest,” she said. “Working in a high school, I’m very aware that people don’t just arrive as juniors in high school and decide they want to go to college. It’s kind of been in their minds. Maybe at home they hear from their parents who encourage them, but there are many children who don’t have that. By starting young, we feel we’re filling that gap because in today’s society there really are no jobs without some sort of education.”
As a Bezos Scholar, Smith and Warren received a $1,000 grant to implement the project.
“We used the money to create three kits that will remain in the teachers’ classrooms,” he said. “We ordered things like books and puppets, career bingo and things like that which will stay in the teachers’ classrooms, and we have a plan for them to be able to integrate some of those lessons — off and on throughout the year — into their regular teaching so it will be a reminder and provide further information.”
Smith, who will graduate from PIHS in June, said he hopes the Kinder College Festival will be implemented again next year.
“Our goal is to set it up and assemble all our materials into a nice, compact binder so the festival can be easily replicated next year and perhaps even be expanded into another elementary school,” he said. “I’ve been seeking out recruits to lead the process next year and keep the momentum going.”
In addition to the UMPI students, Smith was assisted by sophomores, juniors and seniors who are active in the Community Service Initiative (CSI) group, which was started last year by Paul Elish as his Local Ideas Festival, and members of the National Honor Society.
