Seattle Preschool Brings Kids Alive By Inviting Senior Residents

By R. Siva Kumar - 18 Jun '15 02:15AM

At a Seattle preschool, in which 400 elderly people take care of small children, both groups benefit, according to abcnews.

The preschool is situated in Providence Mount St. Vincent, and is a senior care center in West Seattle called the Intergenerational Learning Center. For five days a week, both generations combine to enjoy a nymber of hobbies such as music, dancing, art, lunch, storytelling or just visiting.

"If you don't have places where people can connect, if you have institutions that are focused on different age groups," said Nancy Henkin, executive director of Temple University's Intergenerational Center, the result can be "negative stereotypes and people feeling isolated from each other," according to bostoneglobe.

Incredibly, a film, "Present Perfect," was shot here in the 2012-2013 school year by filmmaker Evan Briggs, who is also adjunct professor at Seattle University. Briggs has funded and shot it on her own, and has also launched a Kickstarter to edit it. She has more than $45,000 of her $50,000 goal, with 15 days to go.

Residents of "the Mount," Briggs said, did a "complete transformation in the presence of the children. Moments before the kids came in, sometimes the people seemed half alive, sometimes asleep. It was a depressing scene. As soon as the kids walked in for art or music or making sandwiches for the homeless or whatever the project that day was, the residents came alive."

The children, she says, were patient. For instance, when an old man could not remember a boy's name, Matt, he just kept asking him his name repeatedly, calling him Mack, Matt and Match. "That scene actually went on far longer that what you see in the trailer. But Max was just so patient, he just kept repeating his name over and over."

The children are sent to Intergenerational Learning Center not for the experience with the seniors. "It's got a great reputation and great teachers," said Briggs. Yet the parents are impressed with the model. "One father told me that he especially sees it now that his own parents are aging."

The is called "Present Perfect" because the preschoolers have little in their past but a lot of future, while the elderly have a rich past but little in their future. There is some overlap in their lives.

"It's also about being in the present moment," Briggs said, "something so many adults struggle with."

The experiences are shows as "sweet, some awkward, some funny - all of them poignant and heartbreakingly real."

Hoping that the film opens some new thinking about the age, she writes on her Kickstarter, "Shooting this film and embedding myself in the nursing home environment also allowed me to see with new eyes just how generationally segregated we've become as a society. And getting to know so many of the amazing residents of the Mount really highlighted the tremendous loss this is for us all."

Hoping that the idea spreads to the rest of the country, she says: "It's a great example of how we integrate the elderly into society."