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Telling stories, linking lives
The Daily Camera
March 27, 2005
Ella Salvator, 14, scanned the row of wrinkled faces. It was like picking a teammate in PE class, minus the fun part, the game, she thought.
Plus, she knew nothing about these people in front of her at the Balfour Retirement Community in Louisville.
Like her dozen or so Bridge School classmates, she felt uncomfortable just being in a retirement home. Ella didn't even know any elderly people other than her grandparents, who are totally different because grandparents have to love their grandkids no matter what, she said.
She knew she'd have to rely on her finely sharpened first-impression radar to choose her elderly partner. Lucky for Ella, all 14-year-old girls are naturally equipped with that.
"I heard older people can get grumpy and do weird things," Ella said. She'd have to be careful not to pick a mean one.
Her eyes settled on the tiniest woman she'd ever seen. The woman looked gentle, patient and, most important, talkative. Hopefully she'd make the assignment easy on Ella and her friend/partner, Harper Dilts, 13. To be honest, neither was super-excited about hanging with a 90-year-old for seven months and writing a biography about her, Ella said.
The mandatory service project in seventh-grade had been much more her kind of thing. She helped first- and second-graders at her old elementary school. The kids looked up to her and respected her. This year, she was on the other end, looking up. It felt weird.
The nervous giggles across the common room indicated she wasn't alone. Some of the Balfour residents also were wary ("After the kind of kids you see on TV," they said). Today's teenagers seemed to look and act so differently than kids back in the day.
But the Boulder-based Bridge School teachers who designed the project two years ago as part of the eighth-grade curriculum said they knew what they were doing. The teachers anticipated intense changes in the students' perspectives — the kind of stuff that builds character. Sometimes you have to push yourself past your comfort zone to grow, they said.
And in the spirit of the school's name, the teachers knew they had to just sit back and watch the bridges rise. The students and Balfour residents had more in common than either of them first realized. Gretchen Lang, the incoming head of school, calls it the "circle of life."
"It's the idea that you can feel like there are endings and beginnings at the same time, the rebirth of something in yourself," she said. "The new discovery of something in yourself."
That would all make sense as the project progressed, she said.
Uncomfortable silence
Ella's teachers told the class the project would teach them a lot. Ella said she thought, "Oh sure."
She and Harper shared a recliner next to their tiny white-haired partner, who they learned was named Willie Howard. The tall, striped chair devoured her. Ella's 5-foot-5 frame, with brown hair falling halfway down her back, felt gigantic.
They had an hour to get to know one another. Ella stumbled over some flat questions like "How old are you?" and "How do I spell your name?" But mostly, Day One was uncomfortable silence.
Was Willie annoyed? Ella wondered. She had no idea what this woman thought of her and Harper. She must hate our clothes. That's one thing that's weird about older people. You never know what they think about you.
At 13 and 14, it's tough not knowing how others see you, she said. You want them to like you, but like that's possible, when you can't even small-talk, she said.
Second impressions
The next month, when Ella returned, she prepared a list of questions to fill the empty air. She needed something — anything — to pad her essay. Her language arts and social studies teachers had high expectations for this yearlong project. They told the students to "dig deep" and uncover the person's "true essence," whatever that meant.
Willie seemed pleased with Ella's preparation. By question five, Ella learned why. Willie had been a teacher for nearly 20 years in Missouri. Mostly one- and two-room schoolhouses. One year, during the busy cotton season, Willie taught 45 students at once.
Willie was 90 years old now, but she was still definitely a teacher, Ella said. Which meant Willie was not going to make this project easy. At all. Without saying it, she made it quite clear she had high expectations. Everything was to be accurate and the questions needed to be good.
"Willie's a really nice person, but you expect someone that small to have a small personality," Ella said. "She doesn't."
Ella looked around the spacious common room at the other students. Some were laughing over mounds of weathered photos. Thomas Irvine and Matty Hong were playing cards with 93-year-old Myrtle Werner. It didn't seem fair.
Ella turned back to her long list of questions and began "digging deep."
The mirror
It's scary opening your life to strangers and not knowing if they'll listen. That was the most paralyzing fear for the older participants, far beyond the superficial stereotypes of "trouble-making teenagers," said Kathleen Sullivan, Balfour activities director.
Especially because older people aren't used to being listened to. Retired people in America today are pushed aside, "marginalized," Sullivan said.
But tilt an ear toward any retirement home, and you'll experience the lingering pain of losing a buddy in battle, like 94-year-old Tom Casey's; the pride in having eight great-grandchildren, like Myrtle Werner's; and the sadness in watching your humble schoolhouse wash away in a flood, like Willie Howard's.
Willie helped rebuild the schoolhouse and kept on teaching. She was a second mother to those kids, she said.
Ella listened. She practiced something her teachers called "deep listening." It was like holding up a mirror to the other person. What would be her five-page, single-spaced biography was gradually coming together.
Sometimes, as she reflected Willie's story, a sliver of light bounced back onto her and she saw herself. She wasn't used to being listened to either. As a middle-schooler, she knew all about feeling marginalized.
The bridge
One day, Ella learned Willie also played the piano and basketball — a major shock because of Willie's stature. Here Ella was just starting her independent life and Willie was winding hers down, yet they shared these two simple passions.
As the monthly meetings continued, Ella realized how cool it was to have an adult other than her parents to talk to because ... well, like once, when Ella kissed this guy, her parents got super mad, she said.
"It was horrible, really. But then Willie told us that once she kissed a boy and her parents got mad at her," Ella said. "But she just laughed about it. It's nice to know you can laugh about it later, whatever happens."
Ella had never known an adult so candid about his or her own mistakes. One day, Ella realized she'd stopped wondering how Willie was judging her. It was enough that Willie liked her. They had nothing to argue about, unlike her middle-school girlfriends, and Ella had everything to learn.
They were both independent types. But Willie had known when to ask for help, like moving into Balfour. And Ella sensed that her youthful fire to assert her independence was refreshing in the retirement facility. Despite — or maybe because of — the generation gap, a bridge arose. A friendship, even.
The 'soul' of education
Education is far more than academic achievement, said Lang, the head of Bridge School. Children also need to learn social responsibility and personal integrity, she said. She calls that the "soul" of education.
Understanding yourself and your place in the world is the hardest thing about being a teenager, especially when you feel isolated and misunderstood, she said.
"But kids can move beyond that," she said.
Sharing isolation forges connections that destroy isolation, Lang said. The "circle of life" again.
Bridge School is a private school, but it's not religious. Still, spring reminds Lang of rebirth. How everyone has two shots at life: how they live their own and what they share with others.
It's a lot to take in when you're 14, Ella said, and she might not fully get it all right now. Her paper is not yet finished, so really, it's still an annoying chore, "another assignment to do," she said.
But Ella feels something deeper rumbling inside her, even though it's hard to explain. She knows she'll look back on this project someday when she's the white-haired body sitting in Willie's chair, laughing over first kisses and remembering how she used to sink a basketball. She hopes on that day, someone will listen to her story.