ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 1996 TAG: 9611070052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
TEEN-AGE STUDENTS at two Roanoke Valley high schools are volunteering their time to help retirees learn computer skills.
When Marie Huff finished typing the first line of Ogden Nash's poem "The Duck," she was stumped. She didn't know how to get the cursor on her Macintosh computer back to the left margin so she could begin the second line.
"So what do I do now?" Huff asked.
Reuben Dohn quickly came to her rescue.
"Just hit the 'return' key," Dohn said. "Then start typing again."
It worked. Huff was on her way. She didn't have to ask for help on the third line.
Dohn, a 16-year-old junior at William Fleming High School, is volunteering two hours a week to help elderly residents learn how to use computers. Most of them are in their 60s and 70s and are computer novices.
"I'm helping my dad learn about computers. If I can teach him, I figure I can teach anybody," Dohn said.
Dohn and several other students in William Fleming's International Baccalaureate (IB) program are working with 20 people - most of whom are retirees - in a beginner's class at Huff Lane MicroVillage School. They are serving as student assistants in the class taught by Walker Healy, a fifth-grade teacher at Huff Lane.
The class is an expansion of a program that began a year ago when Highland Park Learning Center started a class for elderly residents in the neighborhood.
Besides Huff Lane, the computer classes are being offered at Highland Park and the Roanoke Valley Governor's School for Science and Technology. They are designed to provide elderly residents access to computers and to get them involved with the schools.
Highland Park Principal John Lensch, who came up with the idea, said the classes are an opportunity for elderly residents to join the information age. Tuition for the Huff Lane class is $10 a semester.
The students are working with the elderly residents to help meet community service requirements for an IB diploma. They must perform 150 hours of volunteer work during their junior and senior years.
Shelia Balderson, IB coordinator at William Fleming, said the students also are required to keep a written account of their community service and to interpret its effects on them and the people they are helping. William Fleming and Salem are the only Roanoke Valley high schools in the program, which includes 600 schools in 80 countries.
Balderson said the community service enables the students to learn more about their community, and the community benefits from their skills and talents in turn.
William Fleming junior Patrick Stephens said he enjoys working with the elderly residents.
"It's not bad. They catch on pretty quick," the 15-year-old Stephens said. "I figured they would be pretty impatient, because most of them are just starting out on computers, but they're not."
The volunteers roam the lab as Healy leads the class step by step through each computer process. They help the elderly students insert disks into the computers, type in passwords, learn the keyboard and perform other functions.
"I'm completely lost," exclaimed Marlene Keener during a recent class, as she leaned back from her computer on the back row. Immediately, Dohn went to her aid.
Quoc Nguyen, a Fleming senior, said he feels comfortable working with the elderly residents because he has a close relationship with his grandparents.
Nguyen, 18, is a native of Vietnam who has lived in this country for nearly five years. He said he feels like he's making a contribution. "I enjoy helping them."
"The students are marvelous," said Esther Ruff, who is taking the class with her husband, Robert. "I don't know a thing about computers, and I get confused sometimes."
Ruff said she wants to "learn a little" so she won't appear ignorant to her computer-literate grandchildren.
Edith Harris said she decided to enroll in the class after reading about it in the newspaper.
"I have no knowledge whatsoever about computers, but I decided I want to learn," she said.
Healy, who teaches computer classes for teachers in the city's technology program, said the elderly students make a delightful class.
"They're real polite and attentive," Healy said. "It can be mesmerizing for them because most don't know anything about computers."
Community service has long been a requirement of the IB program, but some school systems require students to do volunteer work before they can graduate. The requirement was challenged in Chapel Hill, N.C., but a federal court backed the school board.
The William Fleming students said they don't view their community service as drudgery.
"I just hope I can help these people," Dohn said. "I really don't see it as work, because I'm so interested in computers."
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. NHAT MEYER STAFF Joe Ly helps Roberta Johnson atby CNBHuff Lane MicroVillage School. Ly is a participant in William
Fleming High School's International Baccalaureate program. color
2. Reuben Dohn (left) fields a question from student Mel Huff. Most
of the computer class participants are retirees. color