Older adults and teenagers face the most judgment from society, Learning Service Coordinator Meg Shirk said. For Sixth Grade Service Day, Archer decided to bring these groups together, giving them a chance to learn from each other and develop friendships across generations.
Service Day is one of the first ways middle school students engage in service at Archer. Each middle school grade does something different for their Service Day to support their community and learn more about different acts of service. For sixth grade, Archer partners with the organization Sages & Seekers, which aims to diminish ageism and social isolation, to create an opportunity for sixth graders to build intergenerational relationships. The older adults, or sages, get a chance to connect with the Archer community and impart advice to the sixth graders, or seekers.
“Sages have so much wisdom, and there’s so much to gain from talking with the sages, getting life advice,” Shirk said. “I think that the sages have so much to gain from the seekers, right? The energy — kind of a new outlook — on life.”
The sages officially met with the sixth graders Friday, Feb. 13. The day began with the sixth graders being split into two groups, taking turns watching the documentary “Young at Heart” in the Lantern Room or conversing with sages in the library.
Though the main event took place on Friday, the sixth graders engaged in service work all week. On Monday, Feb. 9, a panel of sages came to talk to sixth graders about the challenges they faced as teenagers and how they overcame those hardships. The following Tuesday and Thursday, sixth graders participated in activities during mentorship meetings that addressed the issues of social withdrawal and age bias.
Shirk created Service Day three years ago in 2023, aiming to refresh the service curriculum and expose the middle schoolers to themes that they would be exploring in upper school. Each year, Shirk collaborates with Middle School Deans Gemma Ashburn, Emily Gray and Natalie Kang to organize Service Day.
“In the middle school model, each grade has a different theme to explore, to learn,” Shirk said. “So that when they get into the upper school, they’ve tried some things and explored some different topics.”
History Department Chair Elana Goldbaum has been supporting the sixth graders as they navigate the topic of age-based discrimination and the programming of Sages & Seekers. She said the purpose of the event is to illuminate the value of connection across generations as a way to help combat assumptions and stereotypes.
“I think we all — including myself — make assumptions about people from other age groups, whether they’re younger or older,” Goldbaum said. “And the best way to combat assumptions is to challenge them and to engage, especially in discussions that challenge those assumptions.”
The Sages & Seekers program matches the sages with a seeker who has a common interest, so they have something to build activities and conversation around. Shirk said that a few years ago, a sixth grader had just moved from Ohio, and one of the visiting sages had grown up there, giving them a chance to discuss their hometowns together.
Goldbaum said she hopes that Service Day will help Archer’s younger students understand that, age aside, everyone can connect.
“My hope is that they realize that, no matter somebody’s age — whether they’re young, middle-aged, or older — everybody has things in common,” Goldbaum said. “There’s been fashion that everybody has experienced or music that people have loved or defining moments that were difficult. So they can learn from older adults but also realize that their experiences are also valuable.”
This was sixth grader Charley Harris-DiStefano’s first Service Day. Harris-DiStefano hopes to continue doing service outside of the event through engagement in more community services, helping those in need and making new friends. She said Service Day helped expand her knowledge on building community.
“Even though you might be from different places in the world,” Harris-DiStefano said, “and you might not even speak the same language, you can still connect with each other.”
Harris-DiStefano said her favorite part of the program was connecting with her sage and finding that they had more in common than she had thought.
“I think I learned that people from all different ages can be friends,” Harris-DiStefano said, “and there’s not a limit to that.”
