Inter-generational Learning

I am passionate about Inter-generational Learning - well actually any kind of learning but lets stick to one thing at a time Christine.

My 2 small grandchildren live a couple of hours away so its not as though I see them every day or even every week, but my son and I have created a weekly slot when I get to Facetime with the youngest as she comes out of her gymnastics lesson. I have learned so much about beams, floor, bars etc. Then we move on to talk about the upcoming olympics and whether she aspires to compete there one day! Who knows? I remember to ask what her brother is doing at this time, "well he is doing his football grandma and we are just going to see how he is getting on"

If you are not lucky enough to have your own "little ones" or to be a grandparent, then adopt one or two or even three (safeguarding issues observed of course).

The inter-generational learning is SO important. Some of my formative years were also spent a distance from grandparents and I only learned many years later when studying the Family History that MY grandmother played a part in the Suffragette Movement in the early 1920's and then, allegedly was a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. How I wish I had been able to sit down and get her to relate to me what it felt like, what did she do, what opposition did she experience. She always appeared to me, with hindsight, to be a "feisty" lady and this side of her, sadly, I didnt get to know.

Fast forward, to this century (!!) and I was lucky enough to participate in an Inter-generational European Project about capturing memories before its too late. The project idea was not mine but was the vision of a Museum in Talinn, Estonia. Unfortunately their country did not fund the project for them so although they had the vision and indeed had written such a beautiful successful bid with objectives and outcomes they could not participate.

The period they had chosen was the 1950s because at least most of the adults would have some recollection of that. We did indeed. We remembered that Europe itself was recovering from the devastation of World War 2. We, the partner countries made a vow before the project commenced that we would not "talk about the War" for obvious reasons – most of our countries had been in conflict with each other on the opposite side !? but almost the first thing we did was to discuss the War!!

The project leader from Germany was able to tell us about his father and their experience of the build up to 1939. That led to all of the partners, Spain, Italy, Turkey and UK relating what our experiences were. I did not meet my own father until 1946 by then I was nearly 5 years old - the “bonding process” we talk about nowadays was totally missed for me but the early 1950s were quite clear in my memory – I remembered starting school and had photographs of that period.

We all collected memorabilia for our initial meeting - all of the European countries were rebuilding after so much devastation but at the same time we learned that diseases like polio had also spread without a cure back then and in UK our National Health Service had been born.

Architecture played a huge part in the rebuilding, culture & heritage had suffered so decisions had to be made as to what could be retained and what would be irretrievably lost for ever. Food was a huge topic in the 1950s, parts of Europe were on the brink of starvation.

In contrast the fashion of the 1950s was something to behold and music took a huge leap into the dark – the latter part of the 1950s brought us all the rock stars led by Elvis Presley. ? ?And those were just some of the topics we chose to study.?

The project was not just for our own benefit (although we got an enormous amount of comradeship from it which has lasted until to-day.? We had committed to capturing these memories in as many different forms as we could so that, back in our own countries, we could use them to engage with future generations.? Our project meetings in each of the participating countries were also to engage with those who would listen, and I particularly remember the project meeting In Italy where the partners from Turkey brought along with them some participants who had never been out of Turkey before, had to apply for passports & visas and moreover did not speak a word of any other language.? So communication was most definitely non-verbal, hand signals and facial expressions.? I can testify that much hilarity took place.

It was certainly a very rich project (in terms of knowledge we generated and captured.- and none of this would have been possible if we had waited just a decade longer.

So my message is, capture memories whilst you can.? Hopefully my grandchildren will remember things I have told them (and if they didn’t then I am dedicating my book to them).? That’s a motivating factor for me to stick at it and I am sure they will be reminding me.