Intergenerational cooperation in rural communities

The generational theory of Neil Howe and William Strauss provides an excellent illustration of the differences between generations. The generation born between 1943 and 1960 is known as the lost generation, emphasising the distrustful attitude of the generation members to innovations, and the negative attitude towards the behaviour of young people. However, in every generation, there have been free personalities who break stereotypes, who do not succumb to the life routine and who are able to create an inclusive and collaborative environment. It turns out that some members of the lost generation are very good at connecting with Generation Z, born after 2004, and passing on both their life wisdom and values. In this article, I want to provide some examples of such cooperation related to fostering reading tradition, green living and human rights.

Now that another pandemic wave is coming to an end, questions are asked whether teachers in small rural schools, who lacked the technology and distance learning experience before the pandemic, managed to teach first grade students to read. Certainly, if students had computers at home and older siblings, parents or grandparents to help them learn by turning the pages of colourful books together, the reading challenges were overcome. However, with my extensive teaching experience in rural schools, I am well aware that there are many different types of families, and it is not easy for teachers to convey knowledge to primary school students remotely and encourage them to read independently. Thinking about this situation, I recalled the very successful Grundtvig project “Adult education pathways towards 2020” implemented together with our partners.

In cooperation with partners from Hungary, we had the opportunity to learn about the Senior Mentor Program. Participants in the Program are members of the lost generation of various professions who volunteer in schools and help children to improve their maths and reading skills. Marton Aichelburg, the Program Manager, explained how volunteers were selected and how they prepared for mentoring. We were fascinated by the idea and developed the Reading Mentors project at Panevėžys District Education Centre, funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture.

We invited students from the University of the Third Age to become mentors, organised meetings with authors and illustrators of children’s books, Lithuanian language teachers trained the seniors on various reading strategies, and we donated children’s books to school libraries. The work we did was really rewarding: in two rural communities, the older generation read books together with the little ones. Although they say that academic learning is the most important thing for the lost generation, we were very happy to see that the mentors went beyond reading. For instance, in one community, while reading about the horse Dominic, a favourite character of many Lithuanian children, who fell in love with a cornflower (the story “Dominic the Horse in Love” by Vytautas V. Landsbergis), the mentors visited a horse farm together with the children, learned about horse breeding and how horses were trained for sport competitions.

Of course, the key focus was to overcome reading difficulties. At that time we were implementing several projects with schools in Panevėžys district to develop reading skills, so it is difficult to measure how much the Reading Mentors project has contributed to the improved reading achievements of primary school students based on the national surveys, but the community has established a beautiful and cooperative bi-generational relationship.

Now, as we think about the optimistic life scenario of children returning to the classroom after the pandemic, we are looking at our communities where Reading Mentors could help primary school students again, so that they do not become the new lost generation without strong reading skills. Of course, ideas can always be adapted, so maths or science mentors could also be introduced in communities, depending on the needs of schools. We believe that rural areas have many bright people who have completed their professional careers and are able to communicate and to work with primary school students.

Another engaging activity that has brought as many as four generations together is the second life of things. After all, the generation born after World War II tends to live very frugally in order to experience economic stability. While professional careers have enabled this generation to secure a good way of life, they kept their ability to live frugally and creatively resurrect things for a second life. Across Europe, zero waste activities are also taking place in the departments of the University of the Third Age (U3A). Seniors are not only interested in recycling, but also in personally giving things a second life. They are highly active during lectures on climate change, interested in sorting waste and always have great ideas on how to reuse things that are no longer needed.

U3A Raguva Department in Panevėžys district has developed a beautiful tradition of creative workshops, fostered by the former director of Panevėžys District Education Centre, the Department Dean Irena Sabaliauskienė. For the past five years, on the eve of Easter and Christmas, seniors used recycled materials to create festive decorations for their town. They used scraps of fabric collected at home or clothes that are no longer usable to sew Christmas toys to decorate a Christmas tree in the town park. Four years ago, they made angels of used ice-cream sticks to decorate an oak tree in the central square. At Easter, they decorated the oak tree with her own Easter eggs. Some years they knit the Easter eggs, other years they decorate them using scraps of fabric using quilting techniques. Unfortunately, for two years now, the lockdown has prevented the workshops from happening, but the seniors have not given up: they made Easter eggs using old buttons on their own. During such activities, seniors feel a wonderful sense of togetherness and life without waste, and pass on their ideas and experience to their families, their children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.

Well, how does the lost generation we are discussing understand children’s rights? Many in this generation like to stress that children need to know not only their rights but also their responsibilities, and this is indeed natural. Hoever again, the teaching experience whispers that in order to help children to understand and encourage them to discuss their rights, we need to look for engaging methods. Jurgita Vaitiekūnienė, Director of Panevėžys District Education Centre and coordinator of the Erasmus+ KA2 project “Rights” in Lithuania, proposed such methods to the aforementioned Raguva community.

The project “Rights” promotes active citizenship of senior people by bridging generations, based on enhancing the understanding of human rights, respecting, defending and promoting them in educational activities with the help of innovative educational methods. Seniors are given the role of storytellers and tellers about the basic human rights. The project includes the development of a suitcase theatre training in the analysis of rights stories and classroom management in non-formal education activities for seniors over 60. Seniors who already have a strong foundation in citizenship and other values, are encouraged to rediscover human rights and help Generation Z to understand them.

The project also includes cooperation with cultural centres. In the above community, Ina Kuodienė, the Head of the Children and Youth Theatre Studio “Šypsena” at Raguva Culture Centre, together with former teachers Irena and Valentina, help children to understand their rights. During the discussions moderated by the seniors Irena and Valentina, the young actors of the theatre studio “Šypsena” have already proved that they know and understand their rights, and they emphasised that understanding rights is very important in everyone’s life. Specific rights will be discussed by analysing the fairy tales “The Curonian” and “Pinocchio”, and excerpts from the novel “Don Quixote”, by analysing the personality traits of the characters in greater detail and by developing the suitcase theatre performances. The suitcase theatre is to travel to other communities in Panevėžys district, inviting two different generations to discuss human rights topics and encouraging the development of social cooperation networks. Various educational videos of the project on how to develop a suitcase theatre are already published on the website. Are you interested? We invite you to visit the website https://www.rights-project.eu/lt/ by the Project partners: the Coordinator Polo Europeo della Conoscenza (Italy), as well as Consejeria de Educacion Junta de Castilla y Leon (Spain), Panevėžys District Education Centre (Lithuania), Make It Better (Portugal), Association for the Development of Regional Initiatives ARID (Poland), Association Sinaptica (Romania).

The project “Rights. Active citizenship and the role of the elderly in society”, No. 2019-1-IT02-KA204-063346 is supported by the European Commission.

The project “Adult education pathways towards 2020” was selected by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture in 2016 as an excellent example for all educational establishments implementing Erasmus+ projects on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.

This communication reflects exclusively the views of the author, and the Commission may not be held responsible for any use of the information contained therein.

Renata Jankevičienė, an Epale expert, Deputy Director of Panevėžys District Education Centre, coordinator of the project “Adult education pathways towards 2020”.