Participants in Boston's Citizen Schools program 8th Grade Academy spent three days and two nights exploring the Hamilton campus earlier this month. This visit marks the third straight year that students have had the opportunity to visit Hamilton. Citizen Schools is a national education initiative utilizing adult volunteers to help improve student achievement through skill-building apprenticeships, rigorous academic and leadership development activities and real world learning projects.
During this college-immersion trip, middle school students got a taste of college life - including watching explosions in a chemistry class, holding reptiles in a biology lab, eating meals in the campus cafeterias, taking a "sample class" in German, visiting WHCL and the opportunity to engage in sports activities with Hamilton student athletes. They also met with admissions and financial aid officers and explored what it takes to get into and finance college.
This Hamilton trip is the lengthiest and most in-depth of the 10 college visits made by 8th Grade Academy apprentices during the course of the year. Each visit is dedicated to giving students a passion for college that will motivate them to succeed in high school and successfully transition to college. Goldman Sachs Foundation is helping to fund the growth of 8th Grade Academy programming throughout the US.
Students who participate in the 8th Grade Academy commit to spending Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, as well as Saturdays and school vacations, developing writing, math, leadership, and study skills. In addition to visiting colleges, they research and apply to Boston district, charter, pilot, and independent schools, work with writing mentors from downtown Boston law firms, take apprenticeship classes in a wide variety of subjects, publish a magazine, and more. All of the apprentices are graduates of Citizen Schools after-school middle school programs at Boston Public Schools around the city.
Hamilton College alumnus John Werner '92 is one of the founding leaders of Citizen Schools. He serves on its senior management team and oversees the Boston program. Citizen Schools has worked with 8,000 middle school students since 1995 and has a network of 30 programs in 5 states.
Citizen Schools uses the out-of-school hours (80% of a child's waking hours) plus a high quality apprenticeship learning model to change life trajectories for low income, middle school children. Citizen Schools has also created the Teaching Fellowship, an innovative two-year leadership development program for aspiring young after-school educators.
