Donnerstag, 19. April 2012

Sixth and Seventh Lesson

In the sixth and the seventh lesson we had a big discussion about the topic "Retirement home". The students got papers with the general situation and their individual role.
We wanted to sensibilze them for the advantages of retirement homes, but also for the disadvantages and problems which can occure when an old person moves to a retirement home.
The situation was the following: A 78 year old man lived alone until he had an apoplexia and after this he is not able to live alone anymore. He and his four children have to discuss about the future. Some of them are against and some of them are in favor of the move to a retirement home, the old man himself is not sure what he prefers. They also invited the head of a retirement home to their home.
The characters were the following:
Emil, the old man, who isn't sure if he wants to spend the rest of his life in a retirement home. He is a little bit insecure about how life in the retirement is, and he fears the lonlyness. But on the other hand he doesn't want to make too much work for his children.
The first child is Thomas. He's a doctor and he know how important it is to have a professional care from people who are educated for elderly care. He thinks for Emil it is the best to live in a retirement home. His sister Simone has another opinion. She is teacher in a primary school and she  loves her job. But for her father she would reduce her work to parttime and take care of him for some days every week. Family is the most important thing for her, she doesn't like the thought that her dad has to live with strangersin an anonym atmosphere.
Her second brother Rudi shares this opinion. He also doesn't want that Emil has to move in a retirement home. For him the main reason is the budget. Rudi thinks to pay for a retirement home is wasting money, if they can do the same themselves if they organize it well. He is also able to take care of Emil some days per week and would like to share the work with his brothers and sisters. But the last brother Peter has no time to watch for his dad, because he has a great job since a short time and works around 60 hours per week. For him it is no problem to pay a lot of money for the bed in a good retirementhome and he would pay the main charges.
His housewife Maria can not understand how they can think about sending Emil to a retirement home. She is from Columbia and in her country nobody would insert his familymember to a retirement home. It's an affair of honor to take care of the parents when they are too old to live alone.
But Miss Maier, the agent from the retirement home, tries to convince everybody from especially her retirement home, because she has still some free beds there.
Every couple had some time to figure out some arguments for their roles. After this we sat in a round and the pupils started to discuss. In the end they had to find a solution what should happen with Emil.
At the end both groups had a solution. In both cases Emil should try out the retirement home for a couple of weeks and if he feels comfortable, hestays there and if not they would discuss again.
After this discussion we asked the pupil for their own opinion. What would they do if they were in the same situation as our family in the discussion round? Some of them couldn't imagine to let their parents move in a retirement home, others said it depended on the situation and on the health condition and some of them said that a retirementhome is in every case the best solution because than the parents have some people in their age.
All in all it was a very interesting lesson and we are ready for the first visit in the retirement home!

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen