Wisdom, Knowledge of Elders Stream Into Area Classrooms

Arlington school officials have found such success in the senior mentors and tutors that the district is setting up a partnership with the Arlington Learning in Retirement Institute, which offers classes and lectures for people 50 and older.

At Oakridge Elementary in Arlington, about 50 seniors show up twice a week for after-school tutoring in math and reading. Teachers prepare a work plan for each child so the tutors can focus their efforts on each child's troubles.

Principal Lolli Haws said she can't quantify the program's impact, but she likes to say that test scores are good, and "it's no accident that we have a tutoring program." She said the students get more than help with schoolwork from those sessions.

"It's well-known that our children don't have as much time with adults as they used to have, and children crave that," Haws said. "Parents are so busy working or traveling in professional jobs, or they are working two or three jobs or they're a single parent."

And what do the tutors think?

"You can only play golf or go to museums so often," said Peter Ross, 75, a former banker who tutors at Oakridge. "If you had a busy life and suddenly you're not going to work every day, you want to fill it up."

Edna Brill, 79, one of the self-described "Greenspring grandparents" who lives in the Greenspring retirement community and tutors in Fairfax County schools, works with a child with a health problem that forced her to miss school and another who was born in Russia.

They read, work on abstract thinking and just talk.

"You come home and say, 'Today, I did something worthwhile,' " Brill said.