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Karen Rynewicz, fifth grade teacher at Corte Madera School, believes there’s more to school than “just the academics.” Over nearly two decades, she has been putting this wisdom into action by taking her class to meet and bond with seniors at an assisted living community in the neighborhood. Typically, two students are paired up with one “senior buddy” whom they meet with regularly.
The program, called the “oral histories of seniors” has an academic component attached — students are required to interview the seniors and write a biography on them that documents their early years, childhood memories, family life and accomplishments.
“I see their best writing in these biographies,” said Rynewicz, who has been teaching at the grades 4-8 school for 35 years. She grew up in Portola Valley and attended Corte Madera as a child.
Rynewicz started this program in 2005. “The district had a service learning grant; every class had to come up with some type of service learning project,” she said about the origin of the program. “A lot of the classes were just going to raise money and donate to charities.”
But she wanted to do something different. At the time, her own grandmother was at Lytton Gardens at Palo Alto. “I was close to both my grandmothers. I wanted to do something with that age group — no one else was working with that age group from our district so I wanted to try that,” she said. “I thought it was wonderful to develop these intergenerational friendships.”
‘I thought it was wonderful to develop these intergenerational friendships.’
Corte Madera School teacher Karen Rynewicz
Lytton Gardens became the heart of this program until 2020. Originally, students visited the senior home only a few times a year, but over time it evolved into a monthly program which long outlived the grant that it was born out of.
It won the Kent Award for best school program in San Mateo County in 2007. At some point, she even went to a national service learning conference in Minnesota to learn how to enhance it.
“I presented my project to teachers from all over the world — there’s actually schools in Japan that wanted to try it,” she said. Even so, she didn’t imagine it would go on for 20 years.
Recently, due to transportation complications, the venue changed from Lytton Gardens in Palo Alto to The Sequoias in Portola Valley, which is within walking distance from the school. Since last fall, her students have visited this senior home four times, most recently on April 16.
“Even though I’ve been doing this a long time, it feels new because it’s a new place that we’re doing it at,” she said.
Interviewing residents is not all they do. Students also perform musical programs, play games like Bingo with them, and celebrate festivals and special days by presenting flowers to the seniors. Recalling one such Valentine’s Day, she said, ”Some of the residents were crying — happy crying.”
For Rynewicz, the emotional learning curve she sees her students go through during the course of this program is especially gratifying, because every year when she tells her class about it, she’s invariably met with nervous apprehension.
“They’re hesitant about it,” she said. “Every year, they’re scared to go. They don’t know what to say.”
But by the end of each year, when it’s time to part ways, there are tears all around.
“The big thing for me is just the emotions I see on both sides; there’s a lot of happy crying at the end when we have to say our goodbyes,” she said. “The emotional attachment that I see these students forming with the seniors is something I hadn’t expected.”
Through the process of writing the biographies, her students learn not only about the lives of their senior friends but also about significant historical events. For example, many of the seniors have lived through World War II. “One student learned that her senior buddy was (late former President) John F. Kennedy’s cook in the White House!” she said. Another student ended up interviewing his own grandfather, whom he doesn’t know well.
For the seniors, the same biographies become precious collectibles. Rynewicz once attended a funeral of one of the residents and the biography that her student wrote was read out at the funeral.
“What’s really shocked me is the attachment that the students form with these residents,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so strong.”
Rynewicz, who will retire sometime in the near future, hopes the program will continue after she has moved on. To this end, she has requested her colleague, fifth grade teacher Gabriella Kiernan, continue the tradition after she retires.
“I just want it to continue indefinitely because it touches so many lives,” she said. “I want the district to continue to support this project which I know they will.”
The district school board is supportive of continuing the program, but wants more involvement from other classes, something that’s a work in progress, she said.
For now, she’s pleased that new aspects of the project are emerging. For instance, one of the residents is going to come visit the school to teach art.
After retiring, she wants to keep the concept alive by helping other schools develop similar programs.
“I’ve had students come back and tell me that’s the highlight of their experience at our school. And even after they’re out of my class, they still go back and see them (the seniors),” she said. “School isn’t just about teaching the reading, writing, math. It’s important for them to develop compassion and empathy for others. … I’m always getting compliments about how kind and compassionate my class is and I think it’s because of what they’re doing.”