This lesson, which should be the first covered for third and fourth class, looks at the concept that age is relative and sets the context for the remaining lessons at this level. Using Irish population data, the lesson explores the living arrangements of older people and explores the geographical distribution of older people in Ireland.
The overall aim of the theme Cé atá aosta? is to enable the child to:
The objectives of this lesson are to enable the child to:
You can supplement the main discussion in Activity 2 in this lesson by completing, in the classroom, the worksheets from the Online activities Things to do, Activities 1 and 2. For the worksheet in Things to do, Activity 1, the children will need a copy of a map of Ireland showing the county boundaries and the names of the counties. Click here for a map of Ireland that you may wish to use.
| Lesson plan | Brainstorm Interpreting data Role play Group work |
How old is old? Geographical distribution of older people in Ireland Grandad moves in Drawing up rules |
| Online activities | Pop-up facts | Where do older people live in Ireland? |
Multiple choice Worksheet |
Older people in Ireland Data on older men and women |
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Interpret data Interpret data Find out |
Colour a map Older people in Galway How many older people live in my area? |
Start by asking some open-ended questions to explore what the children understand by old and growing old. The following questions and information may be helpful:
What do we mean by old? At what age is someone old? Is someone who is 20 old? Is someone who is 30/40/50/60 old? Is your Dad old? Is your Mam old? Are your grandparents old?
When does old age really begin? Encourage the children to discuss this question. While there is no absolutely correct answer, retirement from work tends to happen in the mid-60s, but recent trends have shown a reduction in this age. However, retirement age may rise again, due to shortage of younger people to fill the jobs that are available. Getting older is a gradual process that starts at birth and there is not a particular point at which we can say old age definitely begins.
Who do you think is old?When you were four years old, who did you think was old? When you were four years old, did you think being 10 years of age was old? Will you be old some day - when? Perhaps, you tell the children what age you preceive old to be. Ask the children to ask their parents what age they think old is. Elicit from the children that what you define as old depends on how old you are now.
Explore the children’s images of older people, explaining that older in this context means 65 years and older. The following questions and information may be helpful:
Where do older people live? On their own or with family? In houses or in hospitals and nursing homes? (Note that 1 in 20 older people in Ireland live in long-stay care, so the vast majority of older people live at home.)
What do older people do every day? Can older people travel a long distance on their own? Do you see older people driving cars, on the bus, or on the train? Do you see older people walking, running, or cycling? Do older people work? Do they do housework?
Do some people who are over 65 need to be looked after in a special way? If so, in what way? Care means help with walking, washing, cleaning, shopping etc. Only some older people need care. Do older people get ill more often than younger people do? If so why? In fact, in a year, an older person goes to the doctor more often than an adult but around the same number of times as a child.
Are older people poor? Some are, some are not. Why might older people be more likely to be poor? You may want to mention income for older people, the fact that they are not likely to be working full-time and that pensions may not be sufficient. Do older people need less money to live on than younger people? If so, why?
What older people do you know? Do you know any old person? What are they like? Where do they live? Are all old people the same or are they different from each other? What do you talk to older people about?
Emphasise that older people are as varied as any other group of people: some happy, some sad, some rich, some poor, some active, some less active, some good singers, good cooks, kind, helpful, sick, lacking mobility, etc. etc.
Share the following data with the children, through discussion and use of the blackboard, or by printing out this simplified version of the data for the children:
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Total number of older people living in Ireland in 1996 |
414,000 |
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Total number of older people living alone (28%) |
114,000 |
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Total number of older people living in long-term care (5%) |
18,000 |
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Total number of older people living with other people (68%) |
282,000 |
Note: You can present these figures in a way appropriate to your class. For example, you may wish to round off the figures to approximate figures of 400,000, 100,000, 20,000, and 300,000, respectively, or you may wish to explain the latter two figures as one older person out of every 20 older people and 3 older people out of every 4 older people.
Discuss these figures, noting the following points about the data:
Worksheets
Two worksheets in the Online activities are suitable for use at this stage of the lesson, if you wish. Each worksheet can be completed as an individual, paired, or class exercise. The worksheets can also be completed at a later stage by the children. The worksheets are as follows:
Background information: Salthill is an older residential area, where many of the houses were built 30 or 40 years ago. Many of the children have grown up, and moved to other areas. The parents who moved there first are still living there and are now 65 years or older. Many of the houses in Rahoon were built in the last 20 years. So most of the population consists of families where the children are still living at home.
Ballinasloe is typical of a town in the west of Ireland – as we know, more older people tend to live in the west of Ireland. The proportion of older people living in Carraroe is very high. There may be many reasons for this. It is a coastal region in the west of Ireland where there are few factories or offices where people can work, so many younger people leave the area to look for work.
Ask the children to imagine the following situation:
Your Grandad has come to stay in your home. He normally lives on his own, but he fell and broke his hip in his own house and has had an operation. He has been ill in hospital for some weeks and is not yet ready to take care of himself and live on his own. So your Mam has decided to look after him for a while, until he is ready to return to his own house. You don’t know your Grandad very well, because you usually only see him when you visit him with your mother and father and your younger sister. Grandad is 75 years of age and lives in another part of Ireland, on a small farm.
Since Grandad has arrived you can’t watch your favourite TV programme, because Grandad has the remote control and wants to watch the news and sports - this is what he does when he is living in his own house. You have complained to your Mam and she said, "Don’t be rude to your Grandad."
Grandad is your Mam’s father, so she always seems to take his side. So you told your Dad about the problem. Dad said that everyone will be old someday, and suggested that you talk to Grandad about what you like and about what he likes, and so come to an agreement about watching TV. Your Dad agreed to have a meeting to try to sort things out.
Now, ask the children to role-play this meeting. Four roles needed:
Before
Begin by choosing the players and ask them to sit in a small circle in the middle of the room. The only rule is that only one person can speak at a time. If more than one person speaks at a time, then no one will hear anyone else properly. Tell the rest of the class to watch the role-play and see how the family gets on together.
Discuss briefly the situation that you have just described, to set the scene for the role-play. The objective of the role-play is to get the children to see the situation from each person's point of view and, if possible, to reach a compromise solution.
During
Allow each character to introduce themselves to the audience, as if the others at the "meeting" can not hear them. Each character should explain the problem from their own point of view. Then, ask the father to open the meeting and explain why it has been called.
Allow the meeting to run for 10-15 minutes, if possible. Do not be in too much of a hurry to jump in, even if it seems to be going poorly. The children need some time to think themselves into their role. Even if the interaction between the characters seems to be of poor quality, something is happening.
After
End the role-play at an appropriate time, whether the group has reached a consensus or not. Go first to each character and ask them how they felt in the role. Did they get a chance to make their point? Did they think they made their points well? Next ask the audience to comment on how the characters had interacted in the role-play - do not discuss the outcome yet.
Ask the group to resume their normal seats and begin to look at the issues that came up. These issues may include:
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Young people |
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Grandparent |
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Parents |
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Discuss the situation with the children. The following questions and information may be helpful:
Working in groups, ask the children to draw up 10 rules that would help three generations live peacefully together under one roof.
Invite each group to read out their list and write some of the better ones on the blackboard. Ask the children what could be done to improve the rules - see are there weaknesses in the rules because only children were involved in drawing them up. Suggest that, in real life, the parents and the older person should also be involved.
This lesson provides opportunities for many cross-curricular activities and links directly to the curriculum for primary schools as follows:
| SPHE | Myself and others | Relating to others |
| Maths | Data | Representing
and interpreting data |
The key questions for this lesson include: