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U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

July 1999 NUMBER 06

Cross-Age Teaching

prevent or reduce crime. By giving studentsone-to-one tutoring in subjects such as mathor English, for example, cross-age teachersstrengthen students’ academic abilities,allowing them to improve performance, gainconfidence, and experience success.

With these results, students may enjoy schoola bit more and become more involved in theirstudies and school activities and less likely todrop out. Since dropping out of school is closelylinked with getting involved in crime, staying inschool is a key step in avoiding crime. If you areinterested in obtaining more information on howdropping out of school is linked to gettinginvolved in crime, get a copy of the Bulletin

Cross-Age Teaching

Have you ever dreamtof being a teacher? Why not start now

by organizing a cross-age teaching program—onein which you teach younger or older students. In

cross-age teaching, your students may be elementary ormiddle school pupils, high school or college students, orsenior citizens. As described in this Bulletin, the subjectsyou might teach run the gamut from traditional academic

courses to crime prevention. Whatever subject youchoose, cross-age teaching offers you a great

opportunity to share your unique talents,skills, and knowledge!

What Is Cross-Age Teaching?

How would you like to be in the teacher’s seat?Well, you can be through a cross-age teachingprogram. Cross-age teaching occurs when youshare your skills and knowledge with personswho are either younger or older than you. Yourstudents may be only slightly younger or olderthan you (like ninth graders or recent highschool graduates). Or they may be significantlyyounger preschool, elementary, or middleschool students, or even senior citizens. As across-age teacher, you may teach lessons byyourself to a class, as part of a group, or as aone-to-one tutor. Subjects can cover a broadspectrum, from crime and drug prevention totraditional academic subjects to special skills.

How Does Cross-Age TeachingPrevent or Reduce Crime?

Teaching crime and substance abuseprevention skills directly—such ashow to resist peer pressure to usealcohol—clearly helps studentslearn about safe behaviors andavoid crime. Teaching academicsubjects or providing training inspecial skills also indirectly helps

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Keeping Young People in School: CommunityPrograms That Work.1

Cross-age teaching programs that focus onlearning skills like playing a sport, performingmusic, mastering a painting technique, orpreparing a meal can also help reduce orprevent crime. Youth who are busy practicingguitar, playing in a soccer league, or creatingartwork obviously have less time to get in-volved in crime or other dangerous activitiesthan students with no special interests oractivities.

What Will You Gain FromCross-Age Teaching?

Cross-age teaching programs can provide asense of belonging to teaching volunteers orstudents who feel left out, lonely, or uncomfort-able in large groups or traditional school envi-ronments. They also allow persons with specialtalents to share those abilities with others.

Students in your cross-age teaching program—whether learning about crime prevention,improving academic abilities, or masteringa new skill—will benefit too by gainingconfidence and improved self-esteem. Theirimproved confidence and increased self-esteem, in turn, may make them less likelyto commit crimes or abuse drugs.

By bringing together people of different ages,cross-age teaching may help eliminate—or atleast reduce—stereotypes or misconceptionsthat people have about others who are older oryounger than they are. Cross-age teaching alsoprovides a great opportunity for everyoneinvolved to learn about and appreciate the

abilities, experience, and perspective of personsof different ages.

Programs that involve students who are muchyounger or much older than you will have addedbenefits. Youth who are teaching preschool orelementary school students, for example, will beable to serve as role models for children in needof guidance and advice. Cross-age teachingprograms for senior citizens may help to elimi-nate or reduce misconceptions—or even fears—that seniors may have about young people in thecommunity.2

Many youth across the country have alreadyinitiated successful cross-age teaching pro-grams. In Barnwell, SC, for example, a groupof high school students organized an antidrugtraining program for 11- to 14-year-olds inwhich they provided these younger studentswith antidrug information and taught themtechniques for resisting peer pressure to usedrugs. Drawing on their experiences, theBarnwell high school students impartedvaluable information and at the same timeserved as role models for the younger students.

How Do You Start a Cross-AgeTeaching Program?

Step 1: Determine Your Focus

Decide what age your students will be and whatyou want to teach them. While you may revisethis initial decision, you need to start yourprogram with a specific direction. Many youthlike to teach younger children because they canrelate well to them and may remember some oftheir own problems at that age. Younger

1 Obtain a copy of this Bulletin, publishedby the Office of Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention in June 1997, by calling the NationalCriminal Justice Reference Service (800–851–3420).

2 For more information on the benefits of youthworking with older citizens, refer to TwoGenerations—Partners in Prevention, a Youthin Action Bulletin available at no charge fromthe Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, listed inthe Resources section.

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children, in turn, usually look up to and admireteenagers, which gives you an excellentopportunity to teach effectively and serve as astrong role model.

Teaching older people can be rewarding too.Working with senior citizens, for example, youwill gain new perspectives, make friends, andacquire a sense of history. Your older studentswill benefit too as you give them stimulatingnew skills to master and expose them to yourenergy, enthusiasm, and idealism.

Step 2: Find Students

After choosing a subject to teach and selectingthe age group you would like to teach, youmust find students. Talk with people who canhelp you reach the population that you’reinterested in—school principals, youth centermanagers, day care providers, nursing homeadministrators, and heads of senior citizenprograms. Explain what you want to teach andwhy you think your program can help a par-ticular age group. Propose a possible teachingschedule (with specific days and times) andidentify possible facilities you can use for yourprogram.

Step 3: Research Your Subject

Next, you’ll need to do some research on yoursubject to make sure that you teach the mostcurrent and accurate information available.Talk with people who regularly teach thatsubject. Ask what resources—books, video-tapes, brochures, Web sites—they use toupdate their knowledge. Ask experiencededucators about teaching techniques that areparticularly effective with the specific agegroup you have chosen to teach. Preschoolteachers, for example, may be willing to meet

with your group and explain how to conduct“show and tell” or a “sharing circle.” Highschool or college teachers may offer tips onlecturing and group work or explain how tohave students prepare and deliver PowerPointpresentations.

Step 4: Develop Lesson Plans

Now you’re ready to develop lesson plans. Foreach teaching session, your lesson plan shouldidentify and describe the following:

◆ Learning objectives (that is, what you wantyour students to understand or be able to doby the end of the lesson).

◆ Teaching methods—such as lecture, demon-stration, small groups, or brainstorming—that you will use to meet your objectives.

◆ Key facts, pieces of information, or tech-niques that you need to convey.

◆ Materials, resources, handouts, and equip-ment you will need.

◆ Levels of performance that indicate success.

Planning a Successful ProjectFor more information on how to plan a successfulproject, see the National Youth Network’s Planning aSuccessful Crime Prevention Project. This 28-pageworkbook explains the five steps of the Success Cycle:

◆ Assessing Your Community’s Needs.

◆ Planning a Successful Project.

◆ Lining Up Resources.

◆ Acting on Your Plans.

◆ Nurturing, Monitoring, and Evaluating.

The workbook includes six worksheets for you to takenotes on. You can get a copy of this planning workbookfrom the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, listed in theResources section. Good luck!

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Step 5: Seek Advice

Talk with experienced teachers. They may evenbe willing to provide sample lesson plans,critique your lesson plans, and provide adviceon refining your presentation skills.

Step 6: Practice

Conduct practice teaching sessions with veteranteachers or group members playing the part ofyour students. Borrow a video camera, if pos-sible, to tape the sessions. Watching and analyz-ing videotaped sessions is a great way to evaluatethe effectiveness of both your lesson and yourteaching style.

How Do You Keep theProgram Going?

Make sure that all of your volunteers receiverewards from teaching. For example, designa survey or conduct discussions that allowteachers to receive feedback about whatstudents learned and how much they enjoyedthe sessions.

In securing feedback toward the end of yourprogram, ask students specific questions like:

◆ What did you learn?

◆ What parts of the lesson were most helpful?

◆ What parts of the lesson were most enjoyable?

◆ Would you like the teacher to teach othersubjects?

◆ What parts of the lesson were unclear orneed improvement?

Make sure that students’ responses are sharedwith everyone who helped in the teaching.

Making learning fun will also help keep yourprogram going. Vary lesson plans and includeactivities that are enjoyable as well as instruc-tive. Role-playing (in which students act out ascene to illustrate a point from your lesson),

contests, small-group activities, debates, warm-ups, speeches, demonstrations, and similarinteractive techniques can make learning morefun for everyone.

A great resource when planning lessons is theNational Education Association’s “Works 4Me” Tips Library, located at www.nea.org/helpfrom/growing/works4me. This site offersuseful tips on teaching techniques, classroommanagement, the use of technology in theclassroom, and much more.

What Are Some of theChallenges You Will Face?

Finding enough time to plan and teach lessons,provide feedback to students, and evaluateyour program will be among the biggest chal-lenges you will face. Keeping up with students;updating lesson plans; grading papers; writingtests and quizzes; creating activities; andcommunicating with parents, teachers, andother community members involved in theprogram take more time than the actual in-struction. Volunteers need to understand thesignificant time commitment required; it’simportant to support each other to make thatcommitment work.

Another ongoing challenge you will face isrecruiting enough new teachers. Rememberto recruit new teachers on a regular basis.Advertise your program in area high schoolsand youth centers. Have experienced membersof your group train the newcomers.

You will also have to work on an ongoing basisto keep lessons fresh and interesting. Tryrelating your lessons to current events orpopular performers to capture students’interest.

Maintaining energy and enthusiasm is a chal-lenge for even the most experienced teachers.

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Remember to tailor every lesson to the particu-lar ages, interests, and abilities of the class.Teachers should meet periodically as a groupand find out how others keep learning excitingand deal with classroom management issuesand other concerns. Allow teachers to switchsubjects or observe other teachers, when pos-sible, to keep them interested in and excitedabout the program.

Finding program support—whether donationsof teaching supplies, copying services, meetingspace, or money—is an additional challengefor any cross-age teaching program. Althoughthese programs are not expensive, extra sup-plies and other support can make the workeasier for everyone involved.

What Are Some of the RewardsYou Will Reap?

Any teacher will tell you that teaching’s biggestreward is seeing the excitement of a studentwho has mastered a subject or skill. Serving asa role model for younger students or becominga valued friend to older students also generatesenormous positive feelings and helps renewvolunteers’ commitment to teaching.

Another reward is that, as a teacher, you willalso learn. Teachers gain experience in under-standing group dynamics, conflict management,collaboration, and problem solving—skills thatcome in handy later in life.

How Do You Evaluate YourCross-Age Teaching Program?

Evaluating your project allows you to find outwhether it has met its goals. Evaluation works,however, only if you decide up front what youwant to evaluate and how you’ll do so. Thepurpose of any evaluation is “to answer practi-cal questions of decision-makers and programimplementors who want to know whether to

continue a program, extend it to other sites,modify it, or close it down.”3 When evaluatingyour cross-age teaching program, you will wantto show that it does one or all of the following:

◆ Meets the specific learning objectivesincluded in teachers’ lesson plans.

◆ Helps improve students’ academicperformance.

◆ Helps eliminate or reduce stereotypes ormisconceptions about younger or olderpersons in the community that teachers orstudents may have held prior to the program.

◆ Conveys valuable information to students,whether about crime prevention, academicsubjects, or special skills.

◆ Allows teachers and students to appreciatethe skills, viewpoints, and experiences ofmany people in the community.

Look at the number of students reached, thenumber of sessions taught, and the number ofyouth actively involved as teachers. Examinewhether your students learned the informationyou sought to convey. You can determine whatthey learned by testing them (even throughquestions asked in the group) or by havingthem demonstrate their knowledge throughrole-playing or by creating artwork.

Ask students for feedback on your teaching.This will help you to improve your techniques.Find out whether key points were adequatelyexplained, whether questions were fullyanswered, how students felt about the wayinformation was presented, and what couldhave been done better.

In evaluating your cross-age teaching program,also consider whether and how it meets thefollowing more general crime prevention goals:

3 National Crime Prevention Council, What,me evaluate? Washington, DC: National CrimePrevention Council, 1986.

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◆ Reduces crime or fear of crime.

◆ Educates and informs a target audience.

◆ Is cost effective.

◆ Has a lasting impact.

◆ Attracts support and resources.

◆ Makes people feel safer and more positiveabout being a member of your school orcommunity.

Be sure to include an evaluation step in youroverall plan. Ask yourself what you can do

better to reach your goals, to involve morepeople in your project, and to spread yourmessage to a wider audience. Then, makeadjustments to your activities to strengthenyour project.

Learning to evaluate the things you do is a skillyou can apply to all aspects of your life. Goodluck with your project and—Enjoy teaching!

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Resources

For more information, contact one of thefollowing organizations or visit the U.S.Department of Justice Kids Page Web site atwww.usdoj.gov/kidspage. This site includesinformation for kids, youth, parents, andteachers.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of AmericaNational Headquarters230 North 13th StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19107–1510215–567–7000Internet: www.bbbsa.org

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC)P.O. Box 6000Rockville, MD 20849–6000800–638–8736301–519–5212 (Fax)Internet: www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org

Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc.635 James StreetSyracuse, NY 13203–2214315–472–0001

National Clearinghouse for Alcoholand Drug Information (NCADI)P.O. Box 2345Rockville, MD 20847–2345800–729–6686 or 301–468–2600301–468–6433 (Fax)Internet: www.health.org

National Crime Prevention Council1700 K Street NW., Second FloorWashington, DC 20006–3817202–466–6272202–296–1356 (Fax)Internet: www.ncpc.org

The National Mentoring Partnership1400 I Street NW.Washington, DC 20005202–729–4340202–729–4341 (Fax)Internet: www.mentoring.org

This Bulletin was produced by the National CrimePrevention Council as part of the National Citizens’Crime Prevention Campaign under a cooperativeagreement with the Bureau of Justice Assistance(BJA), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Departmentof Justice. The National Crime Prevention Councilis a nonprofit organization that conducts demonstra-tion and youth-based programs, produces publica-tions and training materials on a variety of subjects,and manages the day-to-day activities of theNational Citizens’ Crime Prevention Campaign.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this docu-ment are those of the authors and do not necessarilyrepresent the official position or policies of theOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven-tion, BJA, or the U.S. Department of Justice.

The National Youth Network, founded and managedby the Office of Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention, consists of diverse youth leaders fromacross the Nation who are sponsored by youth-serving organizations. The goal of the Network is torecognize and build upon the power and importanceof youth leadership by uniting young people andadults, through communication and action, toenable youth organizations and nonaffiliated youthto have a positive, formidable impact in our commu-nities and throughout our Nation.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention is a component of the Office of JusticePrograms, which also includes the Bureau of JusticeAssistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Na-tional Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victimsof Crime.

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