Taste of College Life for Kindergarten Set

Bryan Palacios may not know what a college is, but he knows it’s something he wants to go to. Why?

Because his teacher said it’s good. Because it has a running track. Because they give you candy there.

Huh?

Well, that’s what 6-year-old Bryan learned Friday at the sixth annual KinderCaminata.

It’s a program that takes about 16,000 kindergartners, mostly from Orange County, for a morning at a local community college to introduce them to higher education.

The organizers’ goal is to expose children from lower-income families to their numerous college and career opportunities as early as possible.

But many of the children swinging through the quad at Santa Ana College, after listening to 30 representatives ranging from a U.S. Postal Service worker sharing information about career opportunities to the school’s chemistry department students demonstrating real-life Flubber, remembered only the lollipops and stickers.

“I liked the lady with the candy!” Bryan said. “That was the best thing about college.”

Each year, organizers struggle to pull together funding, which ranges from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, because opponents argue that the children simply don’t understand the reason for going.

“We have to defend ourselves to many, many people each year,” said Santa Ana Community College Trustee Enriqueta Ramos, who has helped organize the event.

“My response is: We’re opening their eyes. We’re showing them there is something more to strive for, and eventually they’ll understand it.”

Still, some researchers of early-childhood education wonder if it’s the best way to spend money.

“It kind of flies in the face of what we know about kids at that age and how they learn,” said Betsy Hiteshew, a former instructor of early childhood education at Santa Monica College. “They think very concretely.”

“They have trouble focusing on what it’s like in the next year,” she added, let alone college.

“These experiences might be really enjoyable, but to think that it is going to be a motivator in and of itself for children to go to college--well, it’s much more complex than that.”

KinderCaminata organizers, who will bring their program to several other Orange County colleges over the next two months, did not base their program on any scientific research specific to the learning abilities of kindergartners.

They talked to administrators at UC Irvine, who, according to Ramos, said data showed that children in kindergarten do not see a clear route to their future.

“That told us that we need to start children as young as possible to give them hope for the future,” Ramos said.

Still, even some teachers Friday said they weren’t sure how effective the day had been.

“I think they’re a little young for this,” said Jan Arthur, who brought her class from Remington Elementary School in Santa Ana. “But they have fun. I think it would be more beneficial if they were older--maybe in third grade. They don’t have the life experience to draw from yet.”

Regardless, many of the kids frolicked and laughed away the day. They played on a marimba with students from the music department. They piled through a bookmobile provided by the Santa Ana Public Library. They shook hands with Santa Ana firefighters and police officers. Many, donning name tags proclaiming, “I am the future!” even seemed inspired.

“I want to be a firefighter so if there is smoke in a house, I can go water it,” said David Vasquez, one of the 29 kindergartners from Washington Elementary School in Santa Ana.

David’s teacher, Bertha Benavides, is a strong supporter of the KinderCaminata program and its philosophy. In her own class, instead of grouping the kids and labeling them with generic names, like colors or numbers, as some teachers do, she divides them into teams named after the University of California school system and Ivy League schools.

“It most definitely does a lot of good,” Benavides said. “It’s kind of like the reason we’re here today. We’re planting little seeds in their heads.”