It Computes When Young Adolescents Teach Senior Citizens

Abstract

Prior to twentieth century rather limited pace of social and technological change insured a level of continuity between one's childhood and adulthood. While youth of every culture may question wisdom of elders, in a world marked by consistency, development of very similar intergenerational values was almost routine. The advent of twentieth century significantly changed this historic generational pattern. There is a profound difference between twentieth century and all previous periods of human history. The exponential pace of technological and social change during twentieth century has led to a world that Alfred North Whitehead described as the first period in human his tory in which it could not be assumed that each gener ation will live in an environment substantially similar to that of preceding (Whitehead, 1929/1967, pp. 18-19). One of significant results of this phenomenon is a separation of generations into groups that do not communicate or relate as well as has historically been case. Whether we view this separa tion as merely a generation gap, or agree with Longstreet and Shane (1993) when they describe it as an intragenerational disjuncture, overall result is same. People of different generations lead separate lives, often with little or no interaction or communica tion between youth and senior citizens. With soci etal transition from extended and nuclear family to single parent family, many school-age children find that they have little, if any, opportunity to interact with senior citizens, including their own grandparents. Recognizing this intergenerational phenomenon, coupled with a desire to involve students in meaningful community service, led faculty of Hellgate Middle School to develop a middle school community service program. While many schools have attempted to involve students in community service related activities such as aluminum can and bottle recycling or adopt-a-highway projects, these activities often fail to communicate to student participants a sense that they are really pro viding community with a significant service. Rather, understood message is often that this is a helpful, but undignified, way to keep students busy. It is viewed as a kids' project, and it carries little of satisfaction associated with truly significant social contributions. The teachers and administrator of Hellgate Middle School in Missoula, Montana, wanted to couple understanding of useful community service with a pro gram that would help students to establish connec tions with senior citizens of Missoula. Like many intermediate schools Hellgate Middle School is a program in transition. This former junior high school, originally called Hellgate Upper Elementary, is part of an independent elementary school district. Located in western Montana, Missoula has a population of approximately 45,000 people and is served by a newly unified K-12 school district. Missoula County has a population of 82,000 and is served by 12 public independent elementary districts and 9 private schools. Like most of other 11 independent ele mentary districts, Hellgate was originally created to serve an outlying agricultural area. While Hellgate campus is still surrounded by agricultural land, urban sprawl from Missoula has grown out from city center toward Hellgate area. Hellgate Elementary School District has a total stu dent population of 1,221, with 429 attending 6-8