Synergy, noun / si-nr-j: the increased effectiveness that results when two or more people or businesses work together (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
Pay attention, class. Here’s a perfect example of how to use that word in real life: Perhaps high school students would rather talk to someone who met Fidel Castro than read about the former Cuban president. And maybe someone who met Castro decades ago would enjoy sharing the story.
In August, the Star’s Stephanie Innes wrote about Mary Jo Stinnett, who was turning 105 just after earning a continuing education diploma from the “Villa Maria University” program at her care facility, the central Tucson Villa Maria Care Canter.
Ace Charter High School science teacher Timothy Kennedy loved the article and used it as a teaching tool. After they read the article, he asked his students: What did it teach you about lifelong learning?
“I had a neat discussion about learning with my kids, and they were fascinated,” he said. “And then they said it would be great to meet her.”
And so Kennedy met with Stinnett and her daughter, Barbara Kaplan, and it was arranged.
When Stinnett visited the school at 1929 N. Stone Ave. on Sept. 15, “we had a receiving line. It was almost like a wedding,” Kennedy said. “All of the staff came, and Mary Jo talked to 30 or 40 staff members and students for almost an hour.”
Stinnett, who is now in hospice care, talked and answered questions about “what it was like to live in the early 1900s … World War I and World War II, and Fidel Castro,” Kennedy said. “She knew him and didn’t take to him. … The kids were super-respectful and enthralled with her message.”
Not only was the school event successful, Kennedy said, but a partnership emerged in which students will be volunteering as “professors” in the Villa Maria University program.
Synergy. Pretty neat, eh?
