Connecting generations: the power of intergenerational learning

One of the most memorable nights at the Harley School happens a few weeks before graduation every year. The seniors who have completed our year-long hospice elective gather together to lead their families and friends through a ceremony of remembrance, in which they share about their experiences learning to care for the dying.

The program is a transformational experience for the students, and the ceremony highlights the lessons they have learned. One student shared, with tears in his eyes, how he held the receiver of a phone up for an unresponsive patient to hear, if possible, from his estranged brother, who simply wanted him to know that he loved him. Another student spoke about learning to give appropriate distance, and then support, to a woman whose young husband was dying of terminal cancer.

These powerful experiences are the culmination of a course in which students learn everything from how to change someone’s sheets to how to handle the emotions of encountering death. But the specific experiences of the students and those in the hospice centers in which they volunteer are only part of the point. The course teaches students something perhaps more important, something Sybil Prince, Harley faculty member and director of the Hospice Program, describes as a “mutual exchange of humanity,” of truly seeing each other as we are and caring about each other.

This lesson is delivered powerfully in the hospice setting, but it goes far beyond it.

What our students experience through hospice is an unusually intense example of something that has become increasingly rare in American life: sustained, meaningful relationships between people at opposite ends of the age spectrum.

We have become remarkably good at organizing our lives by age. Children spend most of their days in schools surrounded by other children. Adults spend much of theirs in workplaces with other working-age adults. As people leave the workforce and age, their daily lives can become increasingly separated from younger generations.

At the same time, we worry about connection and belonging at both ends of the age spectrum.

This is particularly relevant here in Rochester. Approximately one quarter of Monroe County residents are now age 60 or older, a population expected to continue growing in the coming years. Our county’s Office for the Aging specifically identifies social isolation and loneliness as threats to the health and well-being of older adults and has made reducing them a community priority.

We see another version of the challenge among young people. Monroe County’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey asks high school students questions that get at something deceptively simple but profoundly important: Do they believe they matter to people in their community? Do they have trusted adults beyond their parents to whom they can turn?

We usually think about these as separate challenges. We create programs for young people designed to build belonging, connection and resilience. We create other programs for older adults designed to reduce loneliness and keep them connected to their communities.

But what if we began to think about these challenges together?

There is a growing body of research suggesting that purposeful intergenerational relationships can benefit both groups. Older adults can gain increased social connection, a renewed sense of purpose and greater engagement. Young people can develop empathy, communication skills and relationships with adults whose experiences and perspectives are very different from their own.

Perhaps most importantly, these relationships are reciprocal.

That distinction matters. An older person should not simply become an educational resource through which a teenager learns empathy. Nor should a young person be viewed primarily as a tool for alleviating an older adult’s loneliness. The power comes from each having something to offer the other.

I’ve seen that reciprocity through our hospice program, but hospice is only one example of what intergenerational learning can look like. Imagine elementary students regularly reading with older adults. Teenagers helping seniors navigate new technology while hearing stories about a Rochester they never knew. Students recording oral histories of longtime residents. Retired professionals mentoring young people interested in their fields. Artists, musicians, and gardeners creating alongside people separated from them by 50 or 60 years.

None of this requires the creation of a massive new institution or expensive new infrastructure. In fact, Rochester already has almost everything we need.

We have schools filled with young people. We have colleges and universities. We have senior communities and health care systems. We have libraries, museums, arts organizations, neighborhood associations, faith communities and nonprofits. We have thousands of older Rochesterians with extraordinary experience, knowledge and stories to share, and thousands of young people who would benefit from knowing them.

The opportunity is to be more intentional about bringing them together.

Schools can establish sustained partnerships with senior communities rather than occasional service days. Community organizations can design programming around multiple generations rather than particular age groups. Senior communities can think of themselves not only as places that care for older adults, but as reservoirs of knowledge and experience that can be shared with young people throughout our community.

Our own experience has taught me that the most powerful version of this work isn’t really about service at all. It is about relationships.

At that hospice remembrance ceremony each spring, we hear students describe what they did for people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. But if you listen carefully, what they talk about most is what those people did for them. They changed how our students understand life, death, relationships and their responsibilities to other human beings.

That is the mutual exchange of humanity.

We spend considerable energy in Rochester asking how we can better support our young people. We also ask how we can help a growing population of older adults remain connected, purposeful and engaged. Both are important questions.

Perhaps we should spend more time asking another one:

What might they be able to do for each other?

Ryan Kimmet is Head of School at the Harley School.

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