NetGap Project

Mrs. Bentley helps us prepare to meet with our senior citizen.

Project Netgap is a multi-level, intergenerational service learning project aimed at reducing the generation gap in the Onekama Consolidated School District. During the first year Junior High students worked with Senior Citizens, helping them with computer skills. Now the Senior Citizens are returning to tell the elementary students about their early year.

Senior Citizens Speak to Students

By Patrick Murphy Staff Writer for the Manistee News Advocate

ARCADIA -- Joe Aschauer is 84 years old, and his audience of 15 Arcadia School third graders, collectively, is only 36 years older than he is.His audience today is 120 years old.

The end of class is approaching, and after telling the students about what life was like when he was a youngster and some of the colorful experiences he's had in life, Joe is answering the students' questions.

"What was the name of your third grade teacher?" A tough question for an octogenarian, one might think, but Joe has no problem with it.

"How did boys wear their hair back then?"

"How much did a mini-van cost then?"

While the questions are pouring in, one student is videotaping the session and another is snapping photos on a digital camera. When the bell rings the last question is "Can you go out to recess with us?" and the answer is an enthusiastic yes.

This class is one of the building blocks of a pilot project called Net-Gap, whose multiple goals include introducing the area's senior citizens to computers through the resources available at the schools, continuing an oral history project undertaken in the early 1980s which produced two printed volumes entitled "Wellsprings," and acquainting the students with the way life was long before they were born. What it is most about, though, is bringing generations together.

It began last fall with the students showing the seniors, dubbed "community historians," how to operate a personal computer, set up and send e-mail, and find information on the Internet (such as the classes' own web pages which have documented the project since the beginning). While many of the seniors were out of town during the winter months, the students prepared for the class visits during which the seniors would share their experiences of life in rural Manistee County in the early 20th century. And now those sessions are in full swing. After the class each of the students writes a brief account of the discussions, and all participate in the website development. Fifth graders have also hosted the "community historians" in class sessions. High school students will transcribe the videotapes to create a "Wellsprings 3." Junior high students participated by producing the instructions for the computer sessions.

This year's program was funded by a grant, and coordinators Karen Peabody and Chris Wasserman hope the grant will be renewed. Whether it is or not, the program has proved so successful that it will be continued next year.

Additional senior citizen volunteers to serve as "community historians" are being sought for the fall. Anyone interested should get in touch with Karen Peabody at the school.

The most important part of the whole program was summed up by the sight of Joe Aschauer and his dozen new friends enjoying the balmy weather of the last day of March on the Arcadia School playground. This was a moment that would be easy for all to remember.