Dick Fitts.com

How do you say .com in Russian?

What’s a group Russian women, sixty plus years of age, doing in a Novgorod middle school computer lab?  Teacher Eugenia Kulikova was proudly showing us around the school full of students, who incidentally were more neatly dressed than their American counterparts.

We were there at the school to observe activities that are part of the “Partnership For Elders” a joint program of Linkages of Rochester and the Russian American Friendship Society of Veliky Novgorod.

At first appearance you would see the women as a group of “babushkas”- grandmothers most probably living alone, with little in common with the active students occupying the same classroom space.

Closer inspection revealed an interesting synergy. The twelve and thirteen year olds and the grandmothers were studying computer operations together. Some technical aspects were grasped more quickly by the students, who became instant teachers with the satisfaction of knowing they are helping others. The grandmothers, on the other hand, were able to turn the tables and assist the young students in grasping other aspects.

What was the object of this intergenerational experience? Becoming computer savvy was just a by-product. What was really happening was that there was genuine communication across the generations. Communication opportunities that are so rare for many elders. The elders said how the cross-generational communication was not limited to the young students but served to facilitate communication with their own grandchildren. They also had been turned on to the internet, with one elder enthusiastically describing how she located an old school friend in Khazakstan.

There was little or no expense for this program, yet there were real dividends for both the elders and the young people. A win-win situation for sure.

R. S. Fitts 9/27/2009