For Seniors Week 2026, we asked some of our over-70 volunteers to tell us about their experience with us. There is no age limit to ethics volunteering – our oldest volunteer is currently 88. At 81, William Rodwell is in his ninth year of volunteering with Primary Ethics.

William’s experience

As an 81-year-old, I think it very worthwhile to let my fellow seniors into a secret. For those of you with an inquiring mind and an interest in our grandchildren’s and hence our society’s future, there is something for you that’s even better than the events of the NSW Seniors Festival. And you can enjoy it every week! That’s being a volunteer ethics teacher in a NSW school.  I am now in my ninth year of volunteering and it is undoubtedly my most rewarding weekly activity.

My proximate motivation for volunteering to teach ethics was to ensure that my grandsons had access to the Primary Ethics programme at their primary school. To me it also felt important to find a way to contribute to society after I was no longer doing that through work. The ethics programme provided a meaningful and valuable way to do so.  My grandsons are now well beyond primary school but teaching ethics is so satisfying that I continue to teach at their former school and now also at other schools.

We volunteer ethics teachers believe that the Primary Ethics curriculum provides a unique opportunity for school students.  It develops their moral sensibilities, including the capacity to empathise with others, consider other peoples’ points of view, be aware of the relevance of intentions and circumstances to ethical decisions, and so on.  The emphasis on the students providing reasoned arguments for their ethical standpoints also develops their capacity for critical thinking.  To me critical thinking is as valuable as the ethics component, as it is especially important in this age of false information – it provides students with the tools to distinguish specious arguments from valid ones.  The structure of our lessons as collaborative enquiry also develops the students’ ability to work together to reach a collective understanding of the ethical issues under discussion.  Importantly this does not mean they have to agree with each other, but they should understand other students’ points of view, which is so important in our contemporary polarised society.

The most consistent advice I see given to seniors to maximise health and wellbeing is to maintain their social engagement and mental stimulation.

Being a volunteer ethics teacher provides both. The kids’ openness to ideas, joie de vie and capacity to think seriously about quite demanding concepts is a joy to behold.  I think this interaction with children and seeing the value of the ethics program for students is very rewarding.  In addition, I find the syllabus we teach stimulating and thought-provoking for me, which adds to my enjoyment of the role and has contributed to my own philosophical development.

Moreover, the social engagement does not end with the students.  A group of people prepared to contribute their time to teaching ethics – ie the other volunteers at my schools – constitutes a lovely, supportive and interesting community.  As an old person it’s a treat to be involved in a group covering an age range from parents of Kindy children to long-retired persons like me.  Who wants to be confined to old peoples’ groups where the conversation inevitably turns to ailments, infirmities and funerals?  Not me!

When I suggest to retired people that they would enjoy becoming a Primary Ethics teacher they often say something like “I could never manage a group of primary school kids; it’s too daunting”.  I was also anxious about this at first.  I had been volunteering in several roles at my grandsons’ school, so I knew I enjoyed interacting with the pupils, but that’s not the same thing as controlling a class.  However, the students are not generally little demons itching to cause trouble – most are delightful. In addition, in most primary schools a regular teacher sits in the class to help with any behaviour management issues.  They don’t contribute to the teaching itself, but their mere presence is enough in most cases to ensure that the class behaves and they are there to help if some students don’t behave.