These Seniors Get No Grades But Learn a Lot
By
Nancy Weaver Teichert, The
Sacramento Bee
April 7, 2003
At age 83 and despite her graduate degree, Maryl Gray is often at
California State University, Sacramento, learning about ancient
civilizations, history-making trials or rising health-care costs.
Sometimes she has to pause amid
the bustling young college students as she struggles to get through the
heavy double doors with her cane.
"It's interesting who will
look at me and see who needs help," Gray said. "In a way, we're
teaching the young ones what aging looks like, too."
A retired teacher herself, Gray
is one of nearly 700 retired people who participate in the Renaissance
Society -- the largest of a growing number of learning opportunities for
older people in the Sacramento region.
This week, the UC Davis
Extension launched the newest addition with the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute, which offers a range of courses for older learners.
With no tests and no grades,
these programs offer retirees a chance to take classes just for the fun of
learning.
"There's great research
out there that says the more you use your brain, the stronger it is,"
said Margaret Wilcox, chair of the UC Davis Department of Education,
Behavior Sciences, Arts and Humanities. "No matter how old you
are."
UC Davis won a $100,000 grant
from the Bernard Osher Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to
creating more learning programs for older people.
Some of the first classes
offered this spring will be on the California railroad history, gardening,
sights and sounds of the Great Depression, how to tell your life story and
nutrition and food safety.
Next year, classes will be
offered in the fall, winter and spring for $135 per quarter to people 55
years and older. Classes vary in length from one hour to six weeks.
Amateur gardeners will get a
chance to learn from Warren Roberts, superintendent of the campus
arboretum, for the past 30 years, even if their own garden is in a
container on a porch.
"We'll be learning from
each other," said Roberts. "I find you really take out as much
as you give. If you come with a good attitude, if you come also to share,
then everyone is enriched."
UC Davis will use campus staff
and experts from the community as instructors while members of the CSUS
Renaissance Society rely on each other to make presentations.
Renaissance members pay $60 a
year to attend a variety of classes on campus and off campus, travel
excursions and discussion groups.
Eleanor Hoffman, a retired
school nurse who has been a Renaissance member since 1994, said she taught
several computer classes, and she participates in a weekly walk for
exercise.
"It's a wonderful way to
meet new people and do things together," said Hoffman. "A lot of
people retire, sit home and they don't have anything to do but watch
television. You got to keep your brain working."
Among the classes offered this
semester are funding of the correctional system, how to recognize and
report child abuse, religion and ancient Greece and issues in herbal
medicine.
"It's very
stimulating," said Ethel Livingston, a charter member of the
Renaissance Society. "We talk about the classes when we get together.
We don't talk about our ailments."
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