Collaborating on the 100th Day of School: Gerontology, Sociology, Education, and Social Work, Oh My!

TL;DR

An interdisciplinary team created educational materials to teach children about aging positively during the 100th day of school celebration.

Contribution

The paper introduces an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration to combat ageism through age-inclusive educational tools for young children.

Findings

An interdisciplinary team collaborated over three years to develop age-inclusive educational materials for pre-K-2 teachers.

The toolkit promotes accurate and positive information about aging and centenarians during the 100th day of school celebration.

The collaboration demonstrates the benefits of interdisciplinary work in addressing ageism in early education.

Abstract

Given that some celebrations of the 100th day of school involve having young children dressing up “like a 100-year-old,” a gerontologist and a social worker with expertise in gerontology questioned the ageist ideas this activity could reinforce. Recognizing that children adopt beliefs about various social groups at an early age, we saw the 100th day of school as an opportunity to teach accurate and positive information about aging and older adulthood rather than perpetuate ingrained stereotypes. The small team recognized that additional expertise was needed and reached out to others, including a sociologist, other social workers with gerontology expertise, an expert in health and aging, and an elementary educator with expertise in diversity and inclusion. The interdisciplinary team has collaborated for over three years to provide pre-K-2 teachers with evidence-based educational materials related to aging (centenarians in particular). We created a toolkit about aging and ageism to give teachers options for celebrating the 100th day of school in a way that reinforces academic content while supporting age-inclusivity. In this presentation, we share how the team was formed, describe strategies we use for collaborating, and identify the benefits of working on an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration to help eliminate ageism.