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Duncan Buchanan (right), exchanges cards with classmate Monica Bahr (standing) during an exercise in this fall’s “Communication Between Generations” course. It is the first class in the country aimed at encouraging communication between seniors and young people.
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Generations in Conversation
They may be two generations apart, but it’s obvious Agnes Rothblatt and Reese Tarampi speak the same language.
“Yama ba,” Rothblatt, 71, said.
“Oh wa ga,” Tarampi, 18, answered.
Rothblatt and Tarampi are part of a new experimental class at USF called “Communication Between Generations.” The first of its kind in the country, the psychology class is a mix of 14 older students from the Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning and 15 of their freshman counterparts in the College of Arts and Sciences. The class is both a college-credit course in psychology and an experiment in encouraging interaction between the two different age groups.
During a class last month, the students were engaged in one of many cultural experiments led by assistant psychology professor Lisa Wagner and philosophy emeritus professor Bernice Goldmark that help students explore stereotyping and prejudice. The class was split into two artificial cultures each with freshman and senior members and their own lingual and social differences.
“Through activities, we put them on an equal footing and get a conversation going,” Wagner said. “We’re going to try to facilitate the experience of what happens in society to create prejudice and then ask, ‘How does this relate to aging?’”
Wagner, who studies stereotyping and prejudice, proposed the class last fall as a way to promote inter-generational communication. She said the challenge is convincing both generations that they have something to contribute to each other.
“Because it’s an experimental class, we hope to develop a model to promote understanding between generations,” said Goldmark, who lectures on American cultural, economic, and artistic development in the 20th century, spanning the years of the students’ lives. “We’re treating them as two different cultures.”
Wagner and Goldmark said the first week of class discussions were stilted but now the students interact like any group of 18- or 68-year-olds.
“Every one of our class activities has something unique about it,” said student Bernie Ellis, 82. “I’m always taking advantage of opportunities to interact with the youngsters.”
His younger cohorts said they appreciated the chance to understand the older generation better and that it was already making a difference in their personal lives.
“At first I didn’t think I needed the class but now I feel I can communicate better with my grandmother,” said Danielle Gibson-McRae.
Although half the class has several decades of life experience over the other, the two groups find more than a few commonalities, including cracking jokes when their professors are talking. During a lull in the class, Susan Conn, 71, and Maverick Barba, a freshman, discussed their favorite movies.
“We’re trying to learn to speak together and live together,” Barba said. “It’s fun to interact with older and wiser people.”
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