Since last June, we have had a remarkable woman on our team of teachers. Her name is Olga Pírková and she has many gifts – she writes poetry, does various sport activities and in the past she has worked with children, teenagers and adults – now she brightens the days of the elderly in the Sedlčany Senior Home. Twenty years ago, age forty-two, she was diagnosed with a rare form of Usher syndrome – Olga is gradually losing her sight and hearing!
“When the doctors first told me the diagnosis, I didn’t believe them,” says Olga. “It took me many years to come to terms with it, but even then I wasn’t going to sit back and wait only to watch what was happening to me.”
Olga is a fighter, so she approached the disease by preparing for the inevitable progression of vision and hearing loss so that she would always be one step ahead . She has mastered Braille and Lorm’s alphabet, though she can do without them for now. She hasn’t given up any of the activities she loves so much – she hasn’t stopped teaching, drawing or writing, and even plays sports – she does short distance running and even took part in the Disability Olympics where she won a gold medal in the javelin throw and bronze in the 50 meter run and long jump. Last year she started working with the elderly in the Sedlčany Senior Home and her approach to them is as loving, empathetic and understanding as when she worked with children.
“Since June 2021, the topic I have been working on at the home for the elderly is writing poetry and drawing forms,” Olga says. “After a quarter of a year, it is still too early to jump to conclusions about what works and what doesn´t but there are several aspects that are interesting to mention”, she reflects.
“Firstly, I have completed a generational cycle of teaching with this – I started with pre-school children, went on to first and second grade in elementary school, then to high school and finally came retirement age with all its handicaps. Each age group requires a completely different approach.”
Olga thinks that working with the older generation is very demanding. “It´s difficult to plan ahead with old folks as they progress slowly. Therefore I choose topics in a way that engages as many listeners as possible.”
Olga benefits from her years working with very young children, as the nature of working with the elderly is similar.
“To tell you the truth, after two hours I was at a loss as to whether I made any sense to them,” she laughs. “But now I think I’ve made a connection and have had a little feedback. Grandfathers and grandmothers are asking for more topics and even starting to create on their own. For me personally, the proverbial journey, including the experiences along the way, are more important than the goals and results in themselves.”
Her meetings with seniors are unhurried and stress-free. Every result here is a success and is original in its own way. Just as she enjoys devoting herself to the people around her, writing poems fulfils her too. As she puts it, they are a reflection of what she is experiencing, a reaction to specific situations. Her joy and success came from her poem Labyrinth, which received the most electronic votes from the public at the seventh annual Hieronymus Lorme Prize competition and was thus converted into Braille along with other winning entries.
“I believe that I still manage to transmit joy – and that’s what it’s all about in the end,” Olga says of her approach to life, adding: “Don’t say it´s impossible, I can’t or I don’t know to me unless you’ve tried – that’s a phrase I used to use when I was teaching at school.”
And those are words definitely worth pondering…
Author: Zuzana Šrámková
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