Open Classroom. Intergenerational Education in a rural area
The Open Classroom is an intergenerational educational space which is part of a secondary school in a rural environment, where both students and the elderly of the place learn together, working in teams, through projects which promote a shared learning, social interaction and the creation of new relationships. This programme and space are combined with others such as a nursery and a nursing home, focusing the learning towards the need for caring and the vital cycle.
Local
Spain
Extremadura, Cáceres, Jarandilla de la Vera.
Mainly rural
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): IES Jaranda Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Manuel Last name of representative: Negrete Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: High school Principal Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: C/ Era Nueva, S/N Town: Jarandilla de la Vera (Cáceres) Postal code: 10450 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 927 01 68 25 E-mail:ies.jaranda@edu.juntaex.es Website:https://iesjaranda.educarex.es/
A decade ago (2013) we realized the need to promote new intergenerational educational spaces in order for the youth and the elderly to meet and interact with each other, learn together, create new ties and establish new community relationships. The first actions, still going on currently- excluding the time of COVID-19- were oriented towards a nursing home (ServiMayor) and a nursery (0-3 years old).
Our purpose was to broaden the typical educational situations of students and make it possible to develop skills and competencies in the scope of relationships, emotions and caring. Some years later (2015) we aimed to transform the highschool in an intergenerational space, by incorporating the elderly to the different classrooms, broadening the possibilities of learning and transforming the methodologies and the highschool spaces. Since then, we have been developing different initiatives with the purpose of incorporating new spaces and opening the school to the community, in particular, the group of older people. As a result, we have developed the Three Generations Programme ( 2-3 years old children, 13-14 years old students and the elderly from the nursing home), the Therapeutic Kitchen Workshop (Vocational Training Cookery students together with the elderly from the nursing home), the work camp in the nursing home (secondary students who spend one week at the nursing home during summer time in order to work with the workers of the place), Operación Soledad (secondary students who volunteer to accompany old people who live in solitude in the village) and the Intergenerational Classroom (old people in the high school).
Intergenerational Spaces
Intergenerational Education
Life cycle
Care
Community ties
One of the greatest problems faced by the rural communities in Extremadura, and also in some parts of Spain as well as other regions in Europe, is the under-population and aging, which is known as “the empty Spain”. The territorial imbalance and the abandonment of rural environments is a severe threat for the sustainability of the rural areas, the maintenance and conservation of natural environments, which is closely linked to the rural world, in addition to influencing the problems caused by urban agglomerations. Intergenerationality poses an opportunity to face this challenge:
• It connects generations, strengthens identity and community ties, making the attachment to rural nuclei stronger, appreciating the available resources and proposing new ways for its use and value.
• It promotes the access of the youth to the possibilities and resources of the “silver economy”, identifying new sources of employment and business opportunities.
• The creation of spaces and intergenerational centres makes the sustainability of public services possible in rural areas, keeping and broadening the offer of services and reducing the infrastructure investments and maintenance costs.
• It fosters the caring culture and allows the sustainability of dependency services by focusing on the use of community resources.
• It also offers new answers, which are more costly and insufficient from different perspectives which are disregarded by age, this being appropriate in rural areas where the offer of services is reduced by depopulation.
Firstly, intergenerational ties constitute one of the main bases in our societies. The loss of spaces of interaction and the relationship between people of different ages creates the need to reverse the deficit in order to achieve balanced communities with a certain degree of harmony. The intergenerational programmes carried out are oriented towards the social and emotional well-being, the creation of new prospects of personal development, social participation and caring.
- It promotes the identity marks of the community through the appreciation of the legacy of the previous generations, valuing collective heritage and historical memory.
- It favors the approach, especially of children and the youth, to the life cycle and the identification of the physical and social situations linked to the different ages, promoting self-esteem and leadership.
- These programmes are related to the cultural and social agenda of the high school (Jaranda), which focuses on the SDG through cultural and artistic proposals (this academic course the name is “Verso a verso”, as related to poetry).
- It transforms the spaces, opening them to new users and activities. The nursing home becomes an educational space where children and young people often learn and enjoy. Likewise, the high school becomes a place where old people together with teenagers are jointly educated. These educational spaces change to a new model, like the Open Classroom, which is used for the implementation of new methodological proposals and the application of new pedagogical criteria.
One of the most serious problems confronted by European societies from the perspective based on cohesion and social integration deals with age discrimination. More than half a century ago, much earlier in urban than in rural areas, there has been a continuous and progressive reduction of the intergenerational ties, in both the extra and intra family scopes. In parallel to this, there has been a tendency to the specialization of public services and spaces through aging criteria, causing the segregation of spaces according to criteria by groups of age. This division has led to the creation of negative stereotypes and prejudices of some groups of age towards others (“ageism”), generating discriminatory attitudes and behaviors affecting especially the elderly. The intergenerational Open Classroom programme has aimed at:
• Preventing and addressing negative stereotypes and prejudices linked to age.
• Generating new spaces for meeting and interaction between different age groups, especially children, the youth and old people.
• Questioning the segregation of spaces due to age reasons and integrating people from different ages into services and public spaces.
• Generating new interpersonal ties between people of different ages in extrafamily environments.
• Reversing age discrimination and alleviating the effects regarding self-esteem, motivation, autonomy and solitude, especially in old people.
• Promoting citizen participation and the importance of incorporating the caring culture in the new concept of “citizenship”.
• Strengthening community thanks to the development of relationships between people of different ages.
The benefit and social impact of these intergenerational programmes have been, from the beginning, of a high dimension, for both the results and the social and institutional projection. In fact, they have been broadened and diversified and the number of participants has increased. The committed entities have kept a high level of fidelity to the project, resulting in the continuation of the project until today. It is true that the pandemic has been a severe blow for these activities due to the confinement and prevention measures which still have a current impact. Moreover, from an institutional point of view, these programmes entail an important change for both the values and principles of the organizations and their lines of actions and methods of work.
Even though it is not that easy to measure the results and benefits of these programmes, we have tried to implement ways of evaluation to value some achievements and results, above all the changes regarding the changes in the attitudes and values of the participants, in relation with the improvement of the social and emotional welfare as well as the creation of new models of coexistence. All the participant entities- the nursing home, the nursery, the town hall and the highschool, as well as the students and their families- have shown their acknowledgement for the positive impact it has meant for the users and members who have taken part in the activities.
The initial commitment by the nursing home of ServiMayor and Jaranda high school was supported from the beginning by the regional administration, from both the Health and Services Department and the Education and Employment Department from the Government of Extremadura. Likewise, the Open Classroom was supported by the council of Jarandilla de la Vera, by collaborating with the traveling costs. But the most transcendent and significant of our intergenerational experience was achieving the institutional commitment by both Departments in order to promote and replicate our model in other educational centers. As a result of this institutional commitment, which was formalized by signing an Action Programme (2016), the Commission of Institutional Programmes was created. Some time later the Culture and Equality Department joined this commitment, broadening the scopes of action of the intergenerational programmes.
From then on and supported by the regional administration, more dissemination and formation activities were incremented by the designing of new actions. But above all, the work was oriented towards the creation of The Intergenerational Plan of Extremadura (2020-2025), which was presented in December 2020 as the first institutional plan covering both the state and European scopes, with the aim of integrating the intergenerational paradigm in the government. An ambitious strategy which identifies the main challenges faced by society and the main lines of action to tackle them from the intergenerational perspective.
It shows clearly how a local initiative, beginning in the rural environment, turns into a regional proposal which is supported by the regional institutions.
At first these intergenerational programmes involved the joint work of professional workers dedicated to the care of the elderly (Occupational Therapists, Social Workers, Psychologists, Sociocultural Animators, Socio-sanitary Assistants) and the educational world, mainly Secondary teachers and Social Educators. Both are two different fields of action and work for the type of users as well as the services they offer and the tasks and activities carried out, in addition to the differences regarding spaces and time. The incorporation of the nursery -children from 0-3 years old- meant the incorporation of new professional workers (teachers) as well as new services and areas of action. Coordination work was always developed through the creation of groups of work and programmes of joint formation.
Shortly after, organization and coordination were formalized through the formation of the Commission of the Intergenerational Programmes, with the participation of representatives from the Attention to the Autonomy and Prevention of Dependency (SEPAD) and the Education Department. Later on, they were joined by members of the Culture and Equality Department, in particular services of Equality, Youth and Promotion of reading. From then the Commission of Intergenerational Programmes has been the main board of coordination and action, assuming the responsibility for the design of the Intergenerational Plan of Extremadura. The joint effort, covering different sectors; of services offered by the different departments of public regional administration has meant the breaking with the typical separated lines of work, creating new scenarios for meeting and interaction in order to propose new strategies and programmes of action.
The intergenerational perspective is still a concept barely developed and applied in both Europe and Spain, hence the lack of experiences which are truly based on intergenerational programmes. In this field, our highschool stands out for the leading in this line of work as well as for the intensity and variation of proposals. Also regarding the frames of action which it involves, covering a nursing home, a nursery, secondary school, the government of the village, the local development association and the community of the place.
As far as the role of the Open Classroom, it is extremely innovative and new due to the pedagogical, methodological and organizational proposals it incorporates into the centre. The model of intergenerational education, which combines the learning of old people along with secondary students through projects in contexts related to the environment, is the newest and outstanding contribution.
Moreover, it has meant a progressive transformation of the space of the centre, the Open Classroom being a new architectural approach towards the innovation in education, incorporating some aspects of the Future Classroom Lab, but adapted to the intergenerational scenario. But the most outstanding and differentiating of our experience has been the institutional projection of our proposal, as well as the reach within the regional scope. A model of action where the local experience of a highschool becomes the reference of the action of the Public Administration.
One of the easiest and immediate elements to be replicated has been the development of intergenerational programmes in nursing homes, where students from different educational levels carry out different actions and intergenerational experiences. On the other hand, developing educational intergenerational programmes in the highschool entails a high difficulty due to the methodological and organizational changes as it needs a certain degree of maturity, in both the intergenerational and pedagogical scopes, which cannot be faced by all educational centres. Nonetheless the educational intergenerational model and the transformation of the space in an intergenerational centre can be carried out with the formation, counseling and, above all, the disposal of teachers and the management team.
Intergenerationality is a methodological option, as it incorporates a series of objectives, strategies, attitudes as well as forms and procedures of action. From an educational point of view, there is a higher methodological demand when it comes to incorporate some pedagogical budgets which allow for its development in the classroom within the context of formal education and, thus, incorporating the curricular scope.
These types of initiatives need of the application of active methodologies, in order to foster learning based of competences; closely related to the environment, allowing for contextualized functional learnings, incorporating actions related to the cycle of life and the experiences and the legacy of different generations; reinforcing the community ties and generating identity elements, proposing inclusive social and citizen situations, incorporating caring elements. Moreover, cooperative work is incorporated from the intergenerational perspective, adding elements like mentoring among people from different groups of age. There is also the need for different educational spaces, where a wider dimension is required in order to carry out a Project Based Learning, the use of new technologies and above all, the possibility to diversify the activities. It is about a new concept of school architecture in order to transform the traditional space of the classroom. It is a must, then, to introduce the principle of personalised learnings and individual itineraries for both the students and the old people. Lastly, it should incorporate some transversal budgets which integrate creativity and the result in artistic products as well as social entrepreneurship.
The lack of intergenerational relationships, characteristic in developing countries, like the European Union, is a sign which has not been paid the required attention even though intergenerational solidarity is one of the essential principles of our welfare society. The demographic challenge is one of the main focal points for most of the European countries, which face a reality characterised by the progressive aging of the population from different facts. Rural depopulation and the lack of maintenance and conservation of the natural environments around as well as the reduction of public services; the spatial segregation due to aging reasons, discrimination of old people and the rise of the unwanted solitude; the search of new strategies to meet the situations of dependency and its problems are some of the expressions of the most important global challenges faced by our societies. Without the reinforcement of the intergenerational ties the basis of the European Union values can be weakened, as it makes it difficult to recognise the legacy built by previous generations, which were responsible for the building of Europe through their experiences.
The intergenerational programmes we have been working on add new strategies and lines of action to face the challenges and add solutions from the intergenerational paradigm.
As a result of its almost ten years of existence, this initiative has achieved a certain degree of maturity in its main lines of action. Its consolidation and institutional projection have been its main achievements, especially regarding the incorporation of the intergenerational paradigm to the public administration of the region (Government of Extremadura) and its realization in the Intergenerational Plan of Extremadura. We must say that COVID-19 has meant a digression for a long time as well as the deceleration of these programmes. Maybe this is the most immediate challenge, to recover the intensity of the actions we were developing as well as the impulse of the lines of action driven by the Commission of Intergenerational Programmes.
One of the issues we are very interested in has been to establish a connection with scopes of investigation which allow for a better evaluation of the programmes and the results. Luckily, a few years ago we could get in contact with the Macrosad’s chair of Intergenerational Studies of the University of Granada, as well as the University of Extremadura, taking part in the investigation process. This situation allows us to incorporate new horizons regarding the design, planification and evaluation of our intergenerational programmes. These new lines of action are oriented towards new areas of study and action: the analysis of space segregation and the consequences for both the youth and the elderly in rural and urban areas; the evaluation of social effects, in the quality of life and the emotional welfare of the participants in the programmes; the design of the key competences of old people in the 2ºst century and the effects of intergenerational education as well as the design of new spaces and intergenerational centres.
The development of initiatives and intergenerational programmes has focused our attention on some unattended competences. Apart from the different dimensions related to emotional competence, social entrepreneurship has been given priority as a vital competence.
We can organise this competence in four fields:
1. Actions, tasks, work: it includes dimensions such as initiative, creativity and innovation, disposition and dedication, determination, resolution and effectivity, planification and organization, completion, credibility and opportunity and vision.
2. Social relations: it incorporates communicative dimensions, social skills, leadership, team work, respect, assertiveness, cohabitation, caring and enthusiasm.
3. Personal abilities: it covers scopes related to implication, responsibility, confidence, self-control, adaptability, autonomy, satisfaction and self esteem.
4. Values, ethics linked to the scopes of commitment, empathy, ethic, the critical thought, honey, conviction, affectivity, altruism and sensibility.
Whether in the intergenerational scope or in any other scope related to social and environmental sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship is an essential competence to educate people, participation, exercise of citizenship and the capacity of transformation.
