Response to Elders in Schools
Greetings,
As I was browsing the Washington Post through my bloglines this week, I came across this article, dealing with a volunteer program that has senior citizens coming into schools to tutor students.
This program helps, essentially, everyone: schools, the students, and the volunteers. The schools receive free help and become able to provide individualized instruction that would otherwise be impossible to provide. This, in theory, would also help students with their state testing, which would also provide more money for these schools.
The students, obviously, also would benefit. Their grades generally improve, as does their behavior. Many times, this time together with an adult gives the students the attention they desire and deserve, but don’t get from teachers, due to the large classroom size, or from parents, due to their jobs. This desire for attention would often degenerate into troublemaking, being the class clown, or other behavioral traits.
Finally, the volunteers also benefit. It allows the adult to continue doing things after they retire, which is often a complaint of retirees. It also continues to keep the adults on their toes. At one point in the article, it states that retirees who participate in this program score higher on memory tests than their counterparts.
Although I know this idea isn’t for all retirees, but if a sizable majority of say, the baby boomer generation, were able to volunteer to help students, they would be able to make, in my opinion, a very large impact in our future.
Websites:
Glod, Maria. “Wisdom, Knowledge of Elders Stream into Area Classrooms.” Washington Post, 21 February 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001335.html?nav=rss_education>
