Mutuality of Learning Between the Old and the Young: A Case Study in Israel

Abstract

ABSTRACTAn exploratory study examines the knowledge of old people, their past and present teaching-learning experiences with children, and their readiness to teach children in the future. The respondents to structured-interviews are 76 old people from three cultural groups in Israel: Europeans, Yemenite-Tunisians and Christian-Arabs. Old people have many kinds of knowledge: occupational skills; formal, general and religious knowledge; personal experience and traditions of the ethnic group. Old people who perceive of themselves as knowledgeable and competent, who have frequent contacts with school-age children (particularly their own grandchildren), who reside in communities that support the social norm of communication between the generations, have had positive experiences teaching children and are prepared to teach children in the future. Old people who teach children, integrate then- past experiences, enhance their self-esteem and provide alternative behavioural models to children.