Sages & Seekers Gives Students Appreciation of the Past

Sitting in a circle in Hutton Hall, two groups of people are talking about means of communication and how they are different now than they were 50 or 60 years ago. A question is posed: “Does anyone know what a party line is?”

 

One group is silent, while one hand shoots up from the other. “I was on a party line growing up!”

 

The silent group, unaware of the now-outdated shared phone lines, is a group of Rivers 10^th graders while the answer came from one of the visiting senior citizens taking part in the Sages & Seekers program offered by the English department.

 

The program was founded by Elly Katz as a way to serve senior citizens by providing opportunities to interact with young people while also giving students the opportunity to listen to the stories their elders have to offer. It complements the sophomore class’ central question of how their choices affect their relationships by allowing them to talk to people who have made choices and hear how those choices have changed them.

 

“The program fits in thematically with our central question, but I also feel that the students build skills that they couldn’t build in a normal English class,” said English teacher Mary Mertsch.

 

These skills include public speaking – the students present a story about their Sage at the conclusion of the eight-week program – and listening, something that gets lost in today’s society of social media and digital communication. Some students come out of the one-on-one portion of the program claiming to have never had that long a conversation with one person and with the knowledge of how powerful it can be.

 

“I have seen some students come into the program very hesitant and shy, and the way they develop over the course of eight weeks and how they become more comfortable in their own skin talking to a stranger is something I can’t recreate within my day-to-day class,” Mertsch said.

 

The program has also served as a high point for the students and led to some continued relationships. Trevor Davock ’15 and Jake Stenquist ’15 participated in the program as sophomores and now, a year later, are still in contact with their Sages through email.

 

“It develops so many life skills that are going to help them beyond my class. The power to know that they can have a sustained conversation, that it can be meaningful, and that you have something to say that others will be interested to hear, too,” said Mertsch.

 

The program will run over the next eight weeks with several types of programming. There will be a “speed dating” session where the Seekers can meet all the Sages and figure out with whom they would like to be paired, followed by four one-on-one sessions before they present their stories to the Sages. The final session will be a debriefing session that will evaluate the entire experience.