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Audio Transcript
Experience Corps: Lessons for Life
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Host Intro: Retirement in America – it's not what is used to be. Forget idle time, think new options. More and more retirees, living longer, healthier lives, are choosing to spend their time working actively in the community. A program called Experience Corps has tapped into this growing national resource. It sends retirees into public schools and after-school programs to mentor children. Elana Hadler visited with Experience Corps volunteers in Philadelphia, one of 15 U.S. cities where the program has active mentors.
Narrator: Norma Shub is 76 years old. She's also a woman with contagious energy. For 25 years she poured that energy into her job, teaching dental hygienists, until three years ago when the school closed down. Her unexpected retirement lasted a long few months, until Experience Corps came along and offered Shub a way to get moving again.
Norma Shub: My school closed, I think, in about April and by June I was already restless. One of the things I thought I wanted more than anything else was to have the summer off – oh yes indeed. Because in my private vocational school went all year round and I got my two weeks and I thought, "Oh, if I only I could have," and finally I did get what I thought I wanted very much was the summer off. So by the time September came I surely was absolutely looking for "wow" this is not what I had in mind, you know. We have a shore place and so I like the beach, and I was at the beach a great deal but I thought, "That's enough with this beach, let's go on!"
Narrator: Shub spent two years as an Experience Corps mentor. Last year she was asked to join the Corps staff as a field coordinator, responsible for monitoring volunteer activities at two North Philadelphia schools.
Ralph Gladstone: �Se ponen vestidos, que mas se ponen?
Narrator: At nine o'clock in the morning, when Shub arrives at Taylor Elementary School, the library is already buzzing with activity.
AMBIENT SOUND (Tutoring)
Narrator: 74-year-old Ralph Gladstone is one of a dozen Experience Corps volunteers who crowd around tables with their students, reading, writing, checking homework, and, if there's time, doing puzzles and coloring. It's more than textbook tutoring – the mentors say the job calls for emotional as well as educational support. In a quieter corner of the library, 71-year-old Harold Allen works with first-grader Marquese Jones, one of four students he'll see today. (TEACHING SOUNDS). Teaching experience isn't required for this job – Allen joined Experience Corps after working with water systems for 29 years...
Harold Allen: We look forward to retirement, but after we get there we don't know what to do with ourselves. So when that period came along to learn about the Experience Corps, I was right there and it'll be six, almost going on six years, six terms anyhow, and uh, I'm hooked.
Narrator: You see yourself doing this for a while?
Harold Allen: Oh, yeah.
Narrator: Harold Allen has such a following at Taylor Elementary that he started a club for his past students – mainly so they can spend a little more time together. He says his experiences at Taylor have been the most rewarding he's ever had. Norma Shub has also found fulfillment in Experience Corps.
Norma Shub: Making me absolutely feel, yes, I have something to do when I get up on Monday morning, something that I believe in, something that I know is working, that's valuable. I feel useful instead of playing bridge with my friends. I said, "No, I'm going to go to the school and try to help these kids to read." And it makes me feel purposeful, valuable, useful, all the important things I think that one would like to feel when they become 76 years old.
AMBIENT SOUND OF TUTOR ELLA JOHNSON READING "THE PRINTING MACHINE" WITH STUDENT KELLY GILLIS
Narrator: Across town at the Martha Washington School in West Philadelphia, tutor Ella Johnson helps Kelly Gillis read her favorite book while 81-year-old Helen Love take a few minutes to eat lunch. She works with six children, all kindergarteners, and spends most of her time reading with them. With incredible patience and a chameleon-like ability to adapt to each child, Love seems ready-made for this work. She's waited a long time to do it.
Helen Love: One thing I'd always wanted after graduating from high school was to be a teacher. Unfortunately things happened that I couldn't afford to. When the Experience Corps was soliciting volunteers I went and got the instructions. And from that I branched out into this. And so it's been a lifelong thing for me. I love children . . . and it's like a dream coming true.
Narrator: At nearby Alain Locke Elementary, the Experience Corps volunteers meet with students in a large classroom. The room is packed. Most mentors are working with two students at a time to complete assignments from teachers and finish an end-of-the-year art project. Volunteer Elaine Davis and 1st grader Brenda Poley are making a caterpillar using pipe cleaners and other materials. Davis joined Experience Corps three years ago, after working for nearly 30 years at the post office.
Elaine Davis: It was really great that I was able to come to this school, but also I use para-transit, which is another great thing for seniors, and for people with handicaps. See that's what's great about this – they don't care if you're handicapped, they don't care about that at all.
Narrator: The kids?
Elaine Davis: Not the kids nor Experience Corps. They don't care about that. All they want to know is that you're willing to go and work with the kids. (Mmmm? For the nose? (tutee asks Elaine question in background) Absolutely if that's the piece you want. OK you want me to put a little glue on...)
SPELLING BEE SOUNDS
Narrator: Back at Martha Washington Elementary, a spelling bee is in progress. 72-year-old Marvelle Lattimore works with her student, Cashmere Shamela Wright-Witley. (SOUND OF THEM WORKING ON SPELLING) Cashmere was almost a contestant in this year's spelling bee, and Lattimore is determined to help her make the cut next year.
Marvelle Lattimore: I'm just so glad to be here to help these children, really. Now that my husband's gone I have the time to do it. So I'm glad to be able to come in here and my health has been pretty good, to help these children learn a little something. And I believe one day some of these kids gonna really make it and gonna remember me. I'm going to see some as doctors and lawyers and teachers and they gonna remember me. That's rewarding, that they'll remember Miss Lattimore, "She did this."
Narrator: In these Philadelphia schools the impact of Experience Corps is palpable – the students relish the hugs and one-on-one attention, and the teachers and principals seem thrilled to have hands-on help with children who may be falling behind. Sharon Finzimmer is principal of Julia Ward Howe Elementary in Northwest Philadelphia...
Sharon Finzimmer: It's a true way to recognize a child. When I was a second grade teacher I had an oversized class of 38 children and I can tell you that you just can't do it, you just can't, you can't worry about the child that you assign homework to and it doesn't come in. You have to keep moving and keep teaching and keep teaching to the kids that are ready to learn and there's those students that nobody prepares them for school and that's where the Experience Corps comes in. From the teacher point of view, it's an opportunity to have that student serviced.
Marvelle Lattimore: Some of them have behavior problems that are so bad, you know.
Narrator: Marvelle Lattimore
Marvelle Lattimore: And trying to help up pull them out of those little things they do wrong. But trying to get them on the right track, for the first grade. You may them feel free and comfortable when they come in here, you know. But they're not afraid of us at all. They enjoy coming here. The whole room would like to come in here but they can't. They don't even know what exists in this room but they all want to come in here. "Take me Grandmom, take me." So..
Narrator: While the students and school staffs are clearly benefiting from Experience Corps, the program serves the volunteers as well...
Norma Shub: I'm really getting something that's just very, very good for me.
Narrator: Norma Shub
Norma Shub: I think in some ways I get more than the kids do. I mean it's certainly a sharing, but it just makes me "senior," quote unquote, feel good and I'm frankly going to go on forever.
Narrator: As the Experience Corps volunteers at Taylor elementary finish with the last of their students, Shub wraps up some paperwork and packs her bags to go. She's going to grab a quick bite with her husband, also a volunteer, before she rushes off to her other volunteer job – babysitting her granddaughters.
Norma Shub: I mean, there is no closing, or no retiring from this. I've done my retiring and I'm not a believer in retiring anyway, you know. It's not a thing that works for me.
Narrator: I'm Elana Hadler, in Philadelphia.
Host Outro: This piece was produced at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University as part of Reinventing Age, a national documentary project of Civic Ventures. For more information log onto the Web site www.civicventures.org.
