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Alpha Stage
There's Something About Old Age
January 29, 2007






The New York Times is running an article entitled, "Oldest Person Dies
at 114 in Connecticut."

The article explains, Emma Faust "Tillman was born Nov. 22, 1892 on a
plantation near Gibsonville, N.C., where her father was born into slavery
and where her parents and grandfather were sharecroppers, according to
interviews she gave the Glastonbury, Conn., Historical Society for a
1994 newsletter."

Her husband of twenty-five years, with whom she raised two children,
died in 1939.
Read a Similar Article!


Discussion-Starters for Younger Children

  • Point to three objects, or pictures, in your classroom and ask your
    students which they think is the oldest? Which do they think is the
    newest?
  • You could ask students to nominate different items for
    each category and explaining their reasoning. The class as
    a whole could vote for an item in each category. Does it
    even matter if the students are correct?

  • Ask your students if they can imagine a time when there were no
    cars or buses. How do they think people got around? Would it be
    fun to live in a world without cars and buses? Why/why not?
  • Consider asking students to draw a picture of a vehicle
    from days before automobiles. On the other hand, they
    could develop skits demonstrating how people used to
    travel.

  • How old is your school? Ask your students what they think might
    have existed on the land where your school now sits before it was
    built?
  • Consider inviting an older member of the community into
    your classroom to tell students what your community used
    to look like. What are some of your guests favorite
    memories from their childhood?

  • Tell your students that a lady just died who was 114 years old. In
    what year will they be 100 years old? How do they think the
    world might be different? Will there still be cars? How else might
    people get around? Will kids still go to school? Why/why not?


Discussion-Starters for Older Students

  • Vocabulary terms to discuss: Administrator; Reign; Longevity;
    and, Plantation.

  • Ask your students what Tillman's grandfather might have thought
    about the world in which his grand-daughter lived at the end of
    her life, had he known about it. Encourage them to explain their
    thoughts.
  • Consider asking students to develop a written conversation
    between Mrs. Tillman and her grandfather discussing the
    differences between the end of the Nineteenth Century and
    the beginning of the Twenty First Century.

  • In some cultures, older people are given a great deal of respect?
    Do your students think the elderly deserve this respect? Why/why
    not? In the United States do people tend to respect others because
    of their age? If Americans don't tend to respect others because of
    their age, as some commentators claim, why do your students
    think this is so?
  • Consider putting the concept of respecting the elderly on
    trial in your classroom. What is it about the elderly that
    deserve respect? What is it about the elderly that might not
    deserve respect, if anything?

  • Is the story of the death of a 114 year old women worthy of
    being mentioned on the front page of the New York Times?
    Why/why not?
  • Consider telling your students that the editor of the New
    York Times has asked them this question before publishing
    the article. Ask them to write memos to the editor in which
    they express their thoughts.
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