Building Bridges Over the Ages With Books

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Jeanette Winterson, author and poet, once said, “Books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.” As a middle school language arts teacher, I believed in this theory but wanted to see it in action. When I suggested to my principal that I would like to organize a book club with my students and local senior citizens, he was cautiously intrigued by the idea.

I was just beginning a unit on the Holocaust. For my sixth-graders, I’d selected Number the Stars, a novel by Lois Lowry. The plan was to gather a group of volunteer senior citizens who had been alive during World War II, have them read the novel and meet throughout the unit for breakfast and a book discussion.

I wasn’t looking for Holocaust survivors, just people who might offer some perspective to my students regarding this period in history in which the novel was set. I ended up with five senior citizens—all women—who rose to the occasion and exceeded all of my expectations. 

When I presented the project to my diverse group of special education students including those who had been placed in our behavioral disabilities program based on their inability to conform to school structure and rules, their reaction was aloof and disinterested at best. They were a tough crowd and accustomed to being prejudged in the most negative of ways.

Plus they had their own prejudices to deal with. They wanted no part of “talking to old people.” They were sure the seniors wouldn’t like them, wouldn’t respect them and wouldn’t care about what they had to say on any subject. They rattled off every negative stereotype of older people that they could think of and made a million excuses why this would never work. The bottom line is that they didn’t want it to work. They simply weren’t interested.

Despite their reluctance, I began preparing my class by reading the selection and developing answers to the discussion questions. Every day was met with resistance, stubborn refusal and not-so-veiled threats to refuse to participate in the actual discussion.

As I made coffee and laid out the breakfast pastries on the morning of the first meeting, my stomach was a riot of knots twisting and turning with the anxiety. When everyone finally arrived, were comfortably situated within their groups and had breakfast in hand, the moment of reckoning came. Would my students be able to set aside the negative expectations they had for senior citizens and articulate their thoughts about the book? Would the seniors see past the tough personas my students and treat them with respect?

Fortunately, I had no need to worry. Each woman had brought their own personal history to share with the students. They brought maps of Europe, letters from their fathers who were writing from overseas, postcards from family still living in Europe, books about the Holocaust and photos of their relatives who fought for the Allies. These women shared their memories, their families and their stories with the students. And in the most personal way they shared their lives with them.

Before long, tough boys who were suspended on a regular basis were bumping each other out of the way because “Millie would like more coffee,” or “I am getting Esther another pastry.”

They forgot all about their tough-guy reputations and their preconceived ideas about senior citizens and set about caring for “their” senior citizen. That experience not only communicated ideas to my students but built a bridge, strong and stable, across the generation gap.

Spain is a middle school language arts teacher in New Jersey.