By Steve Syre
An intergenerational tutoring project in Boston is helping young children and older adults overcome the limitations imposed by the pandemic.
Isolation, loneliness, and sometimes a sudden lack of purpose were common experiences for older people who stayed at home for months to guard against COVID exposure.
Young children were also at home, unable to participate in anything resembling a normal school life. Students who needed extra help developing basic educational skills were at a particular disadvantage.
Last spring, an intergenerational tutoring project in Boston helped meet the needs of both groups. Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston brushed up on their technology skills and then went on Zoom to tutor students who needed academic help. OLLI provides lifelong learning, trips, and social activities for people over 50.
The project started small with five students and is now gearing up for a second, bigger phase intended to reach 10 times as many students. Project leaders believe the larger scale project can deliver online experiences that will remain valuable well after the COVID-19 threat has fully passed.
“We’re really interested in developing a model that be scaled up for all 124 OLLI groups around the country in every state,” said Jessica Hoffman, a Northeastern University professor who is leading the project. “First we need to do more work shoring up the model and continue to do research with the ultimate goal of disseminating it more broadly.”
For more information, visit the Gerontology Institute blog