The 100th day of school has come and gone in our country’s schools, but many schools celebrated it all wrong. I’m sure students, parents, and teachers mean well, but marking the 100th day of school by dressing up like a 100-year-old person is surprisingly insensitive.
We’re thoughtful about all kinds of differences nowadays — and that’s a good thing. So why is it still OK to caricature elderly people?
I first learned about this practice on the website of the school district in western North Carolina, near where I retired from teaching. And I’ve since heard that this dress-up day is not just a quirky local practice in my new hometown. These celebrations are everywhere. An online search shows students brandishing canes, pantomiming backaches, and teachers in curlers using walkers as props. Really?
At best, these exercises are silly and at worst, they’re … unkind.
So what should schools do instead? Lots of classrooms and schools already celebrate the 100th day of school in more empathetic ways, and I applaud them. For others, here are some ideas:
- Invite a real person who is 100 years old to your classroom. For several years, I delivered meals to a lovely lady who lived to celebrate her 100th birthday. Miss Margaret’s party was a blast, and she would’ve made a great classroom guest. Such stories she had!
- Build empathetic intergenerational relationships with elderly people by visiting a local nursing home. Sit with residents there, talk to them, and listen to what they have to share. Students at the elementary school where I taught in Michigan often went to a nearby nursing home and an assisted living center to sing songs and read with the residents. Over the years, the students put on a puppet show and an opera, and they interviewed the residents for a school project.
- In class, read aloud a relevant book to mark the occasion. “If I Were 100 Years Old” by Mary Jantz is a good example of a book that’s appropriate for students up to third grade. Reading this and similar books aloud and discussing them would better foster conversation about aging and caring for elderly loved ones than simply having students dress up as cartoonish stereotypes.
I get the feeling, however, that dressing like a 100-year-old isn’t really about understanding and connecting with elderly people; it’s about the number 100. So here are some better ways to build academic connections with this concept.
- I’m on record having reservations about dress-up spirit days at school, mainly because students can feel excluded if they can’t participate. But if you simply must, why not ask students to dress up like people did 100 years ago? An even better idea would be to actually study what life was like 100 years ago, a perfect social studies curriculum connection.
- Finally, the best way to mark the 100th day of school is through math. At a time when math NAEP scores continue to decline for our country’s lowest-performing students, the 100th day of school is a perfect time to highlight math and number awareness. Students can do hands-on activities that show them exactly how much 100 of anything is. For example, younger students can make pasta or cereal necklaces; older students can collect cans for a food drive — anything, really, that involves 100s.
The fact that I’m just now noticing this whole “dress up like you’re 100” thing makes me wonder — are my eyes open only because I’m getting older? Would I have looked the other way if I were less close to 100 years old myself? I hope not.
The American Psychological Association has called ageism is the last “socially acceptable prejudice” and “it’s so ingrained in our culture that we often don’t even notice.” I’m ashamed to admit it took me reaching 72 years of age before I noticed the inherent ageism in this particular way to celebrate 100 days of school. Apparently, many people in our school systems haven’t noticed either. Let’s do better.
Barbara Gottschalk taught English language learners of all ages in five states, including her last 18 years in Warren Consolidated Schools in suburban Detroit. She’s the author of “Misconceptions About English Language Learners: Research-Based Ways to Improve Instruction” and “Get Money for Your Classroom: Easy Grant Writing Ideas That Work.”