An undergraduate course at the University of Toronto brings together students and residents of Christie Gardens, a retirement community in the city, on Sept. 5.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
The first lecture in the “Aging and Health” class at the University of Toronto last week began with an important announcement.
One of the professors, Esme Fuller-Thomson, pointed to one of the students seated in the back row of the room. He was bald, with glasses and a white beard. His name was Earle Toppings. It was Mr. Toppings’s 94th birthday.
“How great is it,” she said, “that your 94th birthday is your first day at school again?”
This was no ordinary day for Mr. Toppings. And this was no ordinary class. Half of the students there that morning were 19- and 20-year-olds, undergraduates at the University of Toronto. And the other half seated alongside Mr. Toppings were septuagenarians, octogenarians, and fellow nonagenarians – residents at the retirement centre where the class took place.
On paper, the University of Toronto course is called “HST308H1F: Aging and Health.” But unofficially, it’s known as the “intergenerational classroom.” It’s where undergraduates and older adults share the classroom for a semester, learning together about healthy aging, and policies aimed at addressing an aging population.
But there’s a bigger purpose to the class too, said course instructor Raza Mirza. It’s to get the two generations in a room together. To find, somewhere across the 50-plus-year age gap, a shared perspective – a common understanding.
“For the younger and older groups, the points of interaction are so limited,” said Prof. Mirza. The opportunities for these groups to meet – Generation Z and older baby boomers or the Silent Generation – don’t often come about organically. The younger students are not yet in the working world. And the older group has generally long since retired.
Soukenya N’Doye, left, speaks with Maike Dammermann at the beginning of class, which is dedicated for socialization between the students and seniors.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
This can lead, Prof. Mirza said, to generational segregation. To young people and older people each living in a bubble. “The risk is you don’t get a perspective outside your own. Instead, you get ideological confirmation.”
All too often, he told the class that morning, the narrative between the generations is about conflict.
Nodding along as he spoke was 93-year-old Suzanne Klein. “It’s a struggle for resources,” she said. Over houses, and jobs. Over the burden of our health-care system.
“We want the same resources. It’s a serious conflict,” she said.
Ms. Klein, a retired law and politics professor, enrolled in the class with hopes of breaking through her own bubble, and better understanding the challenges the younger group faces.
“They’re facing a very different world than the one my children are – even the one my grandchildren are facing.”
Across the classroom that day were signs of differences. The undergraduates wore hoodies and baggy sweats. The older group wore glasses and hearing aids. The undergraduates carried giant backpacks, and laptops. The older group carried spiral-bound notebooks and canes.
But throughout the class, there was evidence that new friendships – new points of connection – were forming.
Hannah Lak, left, speaks with fellow undergraduate student Marion Gommerman, 82, during class.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
As Prof. Mirza listed off some of the most common misconceptions about older adults, he said: “Older people use drugs, did you know that?”
A woman with grey hair called out from the back row. “Marijuana cookies!” A few of the younger students laughed and exchanged with her knowing looks.
And on the opposite side of the room, Ava Airnes fumbled through her backpack, looking for a pen. Until that point, the 19-year-old health studies major had been taking notes by tapping away on her tablet.
The 84-year-old next to her, Terry Lee, pulled a pen out from his leather portfolio. He slid it toward her.
Ms. Airnes smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t even carry pens anymore.”
Since coming to Canada from Scotland for her studies, Ms. Airnes said, she’s had few opportunities to spend time with people outside of her peer group. All of her family – including her older relatives – are back in Scotland.
Mr. Lee’s kids are in their 40s and 50s. His grandchildren are in their 20s, and millennials. “I don’t have this generation,” he said.
As Prof. Mirza had the students fill out questionnaires, Ms. Airnes and Mr. Lee compared notes.
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What age would they choose if they could be any age? Ms. Airnes wrote “30 to 50.” She hoped by then to have a stable job and a family.
Mr. Lee wrote his current age. “I’ve still got reasonable health,” he said “I’m doing enough things to keep busy.”
What age did they consider old?
Ms. Airnes wrote “70+.”
The 84-year-old Mr. Lee wrote “85.”
But it was the next question that generated the most discussion between them. Where they found their common ground.
What are you most worried about for your future older self?
Initially, Mr. Lee wrote “health.” But when he saw Ms. Airnes’s response, he reconsidered.
She had written “loneliness.”
For Ms. Airnes, and many of the other young people in the room, theirs has been a youth marked with isolation. Generation Z reported higher rates of loneliness in 2021 than any other age group, according to Statistics Canada.
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Ms. Airnes was 15 when the pandemic hit. Two of her high school years were conducted online. She didn’t get to see friends, or even much of her family. She remembers writing her exams in large auditoriums with just one or two other students.
Loneliness is top of mind for Mr. Lee, too. He belongs to another generation with high rates of self-reported loneliness: Adults over the age of 75.
He described living through the pandemic in this retirement centre. “We had some friends who weren’t as connected socially who really went downhill,” he said. “Who really regressed.”
Mr. Lee counts himself lucky. He has his wife. They live here together, surrounded by friends.
But a lot of people at the retirement centre live alone. “They sit in front of the TV and vegetate,” he said. He sees loneliness every day.
Ms. Airnes nodded as he spoke. Yes, she said, she understood. They were both nodding.
“You’ve really got to fight it,” he said. “It’s difficult.”
At the end of the class, a small group formed around Mr. Toppings, to wish him a happy birthday.
“It’s freaky, living to 94,” he said. Someone asked him whether he feels old.
“I have certain frailties, and bad balance. And I forget certain things,” he said.
“But in my mind, I feel quite active,” he said. “I don’t feel old.”