Shortly after the masters scullers finished racing on the river Friday, a new generation got down to some serious erg relaying on the banks of the Charles.
The erg racing was part of a field day experience for the middle schoolers in CRI's Let's Row program, bringing them to the river to experience the Head Of The Charles, and do some racing of their own.
"These kids come from Saint Columbkille in Brighton, Ohrenberger School, which is one of the largest public middle schools in Boston, and The Haley Pilot School," said CRI director Ted Benford, as he watched the kids having fun on the machines.
"All three of those schools are part of the Let's Row program where CRI provides them with field trips, including this one, but also our coaches go into those schools and teach rowing on the machines, do field trips to CRI, and then we have the championships that we hold on the track at New Balance in April."
"One of the teachers here is a fellow," noted Benford, "in a program where we pay the public school PE teachers to learn how to coach rowing on the river.
"For the past three years, we've paid between four and six PE teachers to come to CRI in July. We pay them union wages, and they learn how to scull, they learn how to sweep, and they get a USRowing Level I certification and CRI certification so they can actually teach rowing."
"That engagement with the teachers makes the bridge for kids because it's their mentor telling them about rowing and not just us when we visit."
"These three schools that are here are three of our most engaged schools, and so we had Brendan Mulvey, the Race Director from the Head of the Charles, give the kids a whole run-down on what rowing is and the meaning of the Head of the Charles, and the kids loved it. They just eat it up."
"For us," said Benford, "the whole point of this is that these kids just being here changes the paradigm of what rowing is."
"We had a field trip with Ohrenberger last week at CRI, and the kids were super engaged, but then there was this group of kids on the dock and all of a sudden one kid turned around and was like, 'Turtle!' And then there's this whole gaggle of kids, standing on a rowing dock, looking at turtles and on the river. Who knows that what that does to a kid's perspective."
"Columbkille is two miles that way and Ohrenberger is four miles that way. So this is just normalizing the opportunity for them to be part of this world, where we just have to make it happen for them."
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|