School Outside of School (Kosha no nai Gakko) carries out a training program in which people learn “genuine life skills” through participation in farm experiences and community life. The name School Outside of School derives from the concept of having the community itself be the schoolhouse in which learning takes place.
In this program, seniors, people with dementia, disabled persons, teenagers,
children, and even toddlers can become teachers, and the participants learn a
great many things while spending time together in an actual living environment.
Each
hands-on training workshop goes on for three days and two nights. The first day
begins with a home stay in a group home or the home of an elderly person in the
community. Participants bring cooking ingredients to their home-stay destination,
and prepare dinner that evening and breakfast the following morning while receiving
directions on how to cook it. People with dementia, single seniors, or elderly
couples act as the instructors. We pay an instructional fee to the seniors who
play this role. The words of the impressed and grateful students are often sufficient
reward, but our view is that the fee testifies to the truly useful role these
people are playing in society in their job as instructors. Participants rediscover
the resources of the people, nature, culture, social services, and industry of
their local community and deepen their understanding.
Participants
Among
the “students” was a doctor interested in community health care. He listened
to an instructor, a person with dementia, talk about the work he used to do and
encourage the doctor, urging him to “Study hard!” “I got a real sense of the
inner resources of people with dementia, and I was deeply impressed,” the doctor
wrote, and he went on to become actively involved in community health care. Questionnaires
administered after the overnight workshops indicate that the participants feel
they have learned “genuine life skills” from their contact with the instructors
and the overnight experience.- People with dementia
The residents of group home accepted the withdrawn teenager
who participated without prejudice and demonstrated their capacity to open his
heart to others. The teenager had no time to shut the seniors out before he was
chatting freely with them. He went home smiling, with the hosts urging him to
stay just a little longer. The capacity of the seniors to accept people just
as they are elicited the admiration of everyone, and made them wonder whether
dementia gave the seniors a special ability.
The seniors themselves performed their role as
instructors admirably. Their vitality and enthusiasm sprang from situations in
which they were putting their own abilities to use.
- This program not only brings out the potential of people with dementia
but teaches us how essential each senior citizen is to our society and what a
valuable human resource they represent.
- In the course of “training” by living together, the teenagers learn something
from the sight of these enthusiastic, active seniors, gaining a firsthand understanding
of the potential of the elderly and how important it is for them to live natural,
ordinary lives, and this process is wonderful to behold. People see people with
dementia living within the culture and climate of their hometown, and the circle
of supporters and sympathizers grows.
- This program leverages the unique culture and climate of a given locale
to support people with dementia and build a community.
