Plainview-Old Bethpage Senior-to-Senior program flips traditional tutoring

Thanks to a tech-savvy local teen, Carol Bernstein is finally clicking with the Apple iPad she calls “the machine” or sometimes an even more antiquated name.

“To my kids, I call it a gizmo,” Bernstein, 73, said recently at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Senior Citizen Club, where she sat down for a tech lesson with Isabel Wallach, 17. Wallach, who lives in Plainview, is a National Honor Society member who volunteers with Senior-to-Senior, the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District’s intergenerational tutoring program. About 15 people have been tutored by local high school seniors in the first program of its kind at the club, which meets weekly.

Bernstein, of Plainview, had been so frustrated with her iPad that she gave it to her daughter. But her daughter returned it last year after upgrading to a newer model.

“The only thing I knew how to do was play games on it — Word Cookies and Candy Crush,” Bernstein admits.

By the end of the lesson, Bernstein had considerably increased her iPad repertoire, her recently acquired knowledge breathing new life into the device. She can now send instant messages, shoot off group texts to her grandchildren and take selfies.

“I can’t believe what these machines can do,” Bernstein marveled, leaning back in her chair with her hand on the keyboard as a smiling Wallach sat beside her. “It was amazing that this young lady has the patience to teach me.”

New way to cross divide

Intergenerational mentoring has traditionally gone the other way, with older people advising younger people in such areas as life skills and business. But in Senior-to-Senior, the program founded a year ago by a student in the National Honor Society at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, the generational roles are reversed. Teens, who must maintain a 90 average to be members, are sharing the benefits of being digital natives, experts in using technology with those of the broadcast TV and radio generation.

“My grandkids thought I’d just made it to the 20th century, now I’m proving I’m in the 21st century,” an enthused Bernstein had said after her tutoring session. Indeed, she said she might be ready to exchange her flip phone for a smartphone she can bring to her next meeting, on May 10, with Wallach.

Already an old hand at connecting the older generation with new technology, Wallach indicated she’ll take that challenge in stride. “We recently got my grandmother a smartphone, so I had to do the same thing for my grandparents,” she said.

Kelly Baum, an art teacher and faculty adviser for the school’s 189-member National Honor Society chapter, says about 100 students volunteer as Senior-to-Senior tutors. The students arrive as a group and work one-on-one with the seniors in one-hour sessions.

“The kids live, breathe and eat tech on a daily basis, and this is something they can share,” she says.

Senior-to-Senior was launched last May after honor society member Christina De Angelis proposed tutoring local senior citizens as a way to fulfill the society’s community service requirement.

Since the chapter’s founding in 1993, that requirement could be met only by peer-tutoring district students who needed academic assistance, Baum says.

But, she explains, “We needed other opportunities for the kids who weren’t as comfortable dealing with peers, and Christina just wowed us with her idea. We realized this was something we can and should do because the kids are a wealth of knowledge.”

De Angelis says that she checked the society’s bylaws and found that the Senior-to-Senior program was allowed. De Angelis said the program pays homage to the National Honor Society’s “four pillars”: leadership, scholarship, character and service.

“I wanted to reach out to engage and serve the community,” De Angelis says.

Her goal is to leave in place a program for “high school seniors to not only provide tutoring to senior citizens, but companionship as well,” says De Angelis, who plans to study biology and veterinary medicine at Fairfield University in Connecticut after graduation.

De Angelis and the National Honor Society’s 20-member executive board, composed of 19 students and Baum, will be interviewing candidates in May to find a new student director for Senior-to-Senior. “We’re looking for someone who is going to have the time and dedication to this program since it’s a big commitment,” De Angelis says.

Senior-to-Senior made its debut at Atria Plainview, an assisted-living facility about a half-mile from the high school. The sessions quickly grew from one to three each month, with students volunteering even after they had fulfilled their service requirement. They read aloud poetry and short stories, and they sometimes give mathematics tips for balancing checkbooks.

More than tutoring

Baum says she’s noticed a deeper connection forming between the tutors and their students. The program that began with tutoring has created a space for intergenerational companionship.

“Many of the students have grandparents who live in other states,” she says. “You could see that the kids are changed by this experience. It wasn’t just academics, it was really about the connection” with the older generation.

On a recent Saturday, the students prepared a pasta, sandwich and salad lunch for their partners. They ate with them then accompanied them to a performance of the play “Mama Mia” at Plainview-Old Bethpage Middle School.

“The way they [the students] approach the seniors, and the way the seniors respond to them, it’s a mutually beneficial project,” says Emily Willens, the Engage Life director at Atria Plainview. “The younger generation enjoys the seniors’ company as much as the seniors enjoy the younger folks’ energy.”

It’s that energy — and a growing demand from the senior citizen community for more tutoring sessions — that brought the program to the club in Plainview where two long tables were filled by tutors, senior citizens and their electronics. The tech-savvy high schoolers who were handed unfamiliar technology dug into the challenge.

“I’m an iPhone guy. I’m not used to the Android,” says James Bak, 17, of Plainview. But Bak knew enough to show Elliott Bernstein, 72, Carol Bernstein’s brother, the phone’s “basic functions” such as creating a music playlist.

“I have YouTube on the computer at home, but I didn’t know I could use it on my Android,” says Elliott Bernstein, a retired Earth science teacher. “I like listening to music, and its an easy way to get the songs from the ’60s and ’70s.”

Bak enjoyed being the older man’s bridge to technology.

“Growing up with technology, everything came easy to me, but seeing the older generations that didn’t have the opportunity, it makes me feel good that I can teach them,” he says.

At the other end of the room, Milly Grimando, 88, of Old Bethpage, huddled with her tutor, Sydnie Schreier, 17, of Plainview, over the iPad Grimando received last year for her birthday.

“I learned to do email,” Grimando said of her hourlong, one-on-one tutorial. “And then we learned maps and clocks.”

Grimando had found a weather map of New Zealand, where one of her grandsons is headed after college graduation, and she learned how to identify and delete spam emails. “It’s just like junk mail or robocalls on the phone,” Grimando said.

Beyond electronics, the two discovered a mutual interest in Italian cooking. They not only live in the same neighborhood, they frequent the same pizzeria and like the same kind of pizza.

“We talked about Margherita pizza,” Schreier said.

Added Grimando: “I’m Italian, so we also exchanged a little bit of cooking tips.”