School assignment apathy strikes nerve with readers
Dozens of readers contact columnist after reading his piece about a Porter County high school teacher who came up with a clever assignment for her students.
Jerry Hanaughan drifted back in time more than 60 years.
He tried to recall what his reaction would have been to a high school assignment requiring him to write a letter to an elderly person in a nursing home. The apathetic or antagonistic response from his much younger self would have been similar to today’s teenagers, he figured.
“The only difference would have been with the teacher,” Hanaughan said. “He would have said that you either did it or you would be spending some time in JUG.” (His Jesuit teachers described JUG as “Justice Under God.”)
“We would be staying after school for punishment,” Hanaughan recalled.
He and his wife now live in a retirement community in Schaumburg, Illinois. They have an entirely different perspective in their older age about letters written by teens to people in their current situation.
“Every day here we see people who could use one of those letters the teens wrote,” he told me. “We know some residents here who have never come out of their apartment since the (COVID-19) virus started. It is very sad.”
Hanaughan was one of dozens of readers who contacted me after reading my column on the Porter County high school teacher who came up with a clever assignment for her students to practice their writing skills and share some holiday cheer with older people. She asked them to write letters to local nursing home residents who’ve been on lockdown since March.
Her assignment was met with apathy or antagonism by some students in one of her classes: “Why do I have to write to an old person?!”; “I don’t have anything to say to a stranger”; “I don’t know why I have to cheer them up. The real world isn’t sunshine and roses.”
In response to the students’ responses, I heard from readers from Florida to Hawaii, from retired teachers and current nursing home residents. From empathetic social workers and hopeful clergy, and from adults who may have forgotten their own teenage self-centeredness.
“Why would a random communication from someone you don’t know be of any more solace than a piece of junk mail?” asked Bob Schafer, of Lincolnshire, Illinois. “Where are the families of these (nursing home residents)?”
“I’m surprised your editor allowed you to write this because it is an indictment on the students, the parents, and the system,” wrote Sharon Kinsey, a former English teacher from Virginia now living in Mexico.
“Being asked to write an upbeat letter to a stranger, in the midst of all of this, was a big ask,” wrote Patricia Woytek, of Oak Park, Illinois. “It’s likely many of the students didn’t feel up to it, so they did what teenagers do. They responded by initially complaining about the assignment.”
“Instead of painting these students as entitled and apathetic, I think some grace, compassion and understanding are called for here,” Woytek said. “I’m impressed that most were able to write what was described as ‘sweet’ letters. I’m not sure I could have done as well.”
Susan McIntire, of Honolulu, Hawaii, hopes this teacher doesn’t miss the point of her own lesson by not sending the students’ letters due to any grammatical errors.
“The point is connection, not perfection,” she wrote. “She should have assigned a semester of correspondence, not a single letter. She should have required the letters to include questions to start conversations to have the students talk to, not at, the senior residents. I hope these students will be able to experience the benefit of such interaction… because it increases empathy that is sorely lacking these days.”
Many readers referenced our nation’s volatile political climate for the teens’ reactions.
“I’m not surprised, as they’ve been under four years of similar attitudes from top government leadership,” wrote Margie Dytrych, of Munster. “I still believe in (today’s teens) and hope that the new leadership will foster kinder thoughts and actions.”
At Covenant Living at Windsor Park, a continuity of care facility in Carol Stream, Illinois, residents have experienced anything but apathy from local teens over the past 10 months.
“Almost immediately our surrounding community began to show support in a myriad ways,” wrote Bunny Mirrilees, the facility’s community relations coordinator. “Among them were at least 60 letters written for residents by students in English classes at Wheaton
Academy, taught by Brigitta Engebretson.”
These letters are filled with encouragement, drawings, poetry, song lyrics, Scripture, and personal stories of how the kids were dealing with challenges similar to the older residents — schools closed, activities suspended, sports canceled, and social lives interrupted.
(For more photos of these cards, letters and drawings, visit my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ TalkingPoints WithJerryDavich.)
“Our residents loved reading these letters, and many expressed their renewed confidence in young people,” Mirrilees said.
Tim Zaun, a third grade intervention specialist with Cleveland Metropolitan School District, asked me to connect him with the Porter County teacher, which I did.
“I would like to ask her how I, as an elementary teacher, can better promote writing in my young students,” he wrote. “She could be the catalyst for my learners becoming better writers and, perhaps, when asked to write to nursing home residents, they would welcome the opportunity.”
As I noted in my previous column, all of us could send such letters to these residents who would love to hear from us, strangers or not. We choose not to. We say we’re too busy. Or we simply don’t care. This attitude isn’t strictly about adolescence. It’s about selfishness and excuses. Several readers promised to reach out to this isolated population of people.
In my next column, I will share with readers how to properly connect with residents in long-term care facilities in your community who would enjoy your greeting cards, handwritten letters or attempts of attention.