03.18.05

From left, Will, Anne Forrest, Bess and the Rev. Robert Prim

Cardwell lecturer says connectedness is the key to learning

Anne Forrest Curran Prim, an instructor in health and physical education at North Georgia College & State University, spoke to Erskine students Thursday as this year's Cardwell lecturer.

The 1991 Erskine College graduate spoke about the "relational learning" she experienced at Erskine and said the foundation for that learning was "a sense of connectedness to others."

"It is our connectedness to others that encourages us in the process of self-development," Prim said. "It is also this connectedness to others that helps us to know that we matter — that what we think matters, what we value matters, what we question matters."

Prim, married to a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Robert Prim, and mother of a 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, said when she was asked to deliver this year's lecture, she looked at accounts of previous Cardwell Lectures.

 "In a way that was a mistake," she said. "I'm no neurosurgeon, I don't have a Ph.D., I haven't lived a long life devoted to teaching or working in a children's home."

Prim said her mother and a colleague had each asked her why she had been chosen as Cardwell Lecturer. "My answer was, 'I don't know,'" she said.

So she decided to speak to students "from the perspective that I'm pretty ordinary at this point in my life."

But for Prim, ordinary life means following the call that she received during her Erskine years "to move along the path to be my best self."

Describing her first visit to the Erskine campus with her family at the age of 16, Prim said a friend from her high school in Summerville accompanied her. They arrived on a dreary day in February. "Elena and I announced about the time we passed the Circle that we weren't going to get out of the car," she said.

"We were from a high school that had more students in it than the whole town of Due West had on Erskine Alumni Day," she said. "We were bigger than this."

A stern look from Prim's mother prevailed, and the two friends left the car to go and find the visitation group. On the Erskine campus that day, Prim discovered "genuine interest in who I was and what I wanted in a college," beginning with a simple hello from a passing student.

"I had on that day discovered my next home, a home like no other I had known before," she said, adding that when she entered Erskine as a freshman, she had an immediate "sense of connectedness with others."

Prim said that as a college student she did not always make wise choices. "College is a time like no other — a time for experimentation in self-development, which, for me, had mixed results," she said.

"I am sure several of my mentors, many of whom are sitting here today, saw me make poor choices and come out on the other side," she said. "They cared for me through that process, staying in relationship with me, and encouraging and supporting me."

Prim said a sermon in which her husband spoke about honoring one's parents applies also to honoring teachers. "His point was that we do not honor them by being just like them," she said. "We honor them by becoming more and more ourselves, and it's a lifelong becoming."

Her Erskine experience, in which learning was linked to relationships with others, continues to inspire Prim as she works with students.

"Good teachers and coaches help us acquire the tools to grow beyond the knowledge they teach," she said. "The relational teaching and coaching I experienced at Erskine helped develop in me the tools to continue my growth beyond Erskine."

Prim expressed gratitude for the relationships that influenced her at Erskine. "I encourage you to look for opportunities for relationships, to initiate them, and to be willing to enter into them," she told students. "If you do, I believe your Erskine experience will be an even richer one, one that will continually make more of you."

As an Erskine student, Prim was listed in Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges; was president of the leadership honor society Omicron Delta Kappa; served as a Student Life Assistant; played on the women's soccer and tennis teams; and was elected vice president of her senior class.

In 1999, she received a Master of Education degree in health and physical education from North Georgia College & State University, where she served as a graduate assistant and helped implement the Teacher Leadership Exchange Program. She was a physical education teacher in the Lumpkin County Kindergarten Extension, which housed 10 kindergarten classes, from 1998-2001.

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