Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

RESPECTING OUR ELDERS

Kamloops elementary school students receive special advice from nearby seniors

Sep 24, 2021 | 4:25 PM

KAMLOOPS — What advice would you give to a 12-year-old version of yourself? That’s the question that was posed to residents of Ridgeview Lodge, a seniors care home on the North Shore.

Those same residents visited Kay Bingham Elementary School Friday afternoon (Sept. 24) to deliver some advice and have a COVID-safe visit with students.

“I told my students to read twice the advice that said listen to your teachers,” Lisa Pye, Grade 5 & 6 teacher explains. “One of them was, always try hard and help the people who struggle. One of them was learn to grow your own food, which I thought was awesome.”

Students were each given a card with a photo of a senior and the advice they had to offer. For Russ Howden, the visit to Kay Bingham was a homecoming of sorts.

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“I recognized all of it. It just makes you feel at home, eh?” Howden says. “Once, I janitored here and then I delivered school supplies.”

Howden and other residents wrote out their advice on chalkboards then got to take part in a photo shoot. For Pye, interacting with seniors is a great way for the students to broaden their horizons.

“At this age, they’re very peer-connected and peer-focused,” Pye says. “I think it’s hugely valuable for them to extend their relationships to people from other generations, as well.”

Along with the advice Howden had on his chalkboard, he had a few words of wisdom for the kids. “Do your job, take it easy and make a life out of it,” he says. “Because it is a good life.”

Now the students plan to return the favour to the seniors.

“Well be continuing this relationship now,” Pye says. “We plan to respond in the exact same way, with photos — maybe not advice, but maybe a goal for our year. Something along those lines. Or a memory we have now as grade fives and sixes that we’ll still have when we’re 60, 70, 80, 90 years old.”

Maybe then it’ll be some of these students as seniors, addressing a new generation — passing on their wisdom.