Show V V)MEYEARSAG0- when my wife I Bemice went hack to graduate school V l- I expected changes in our life: I'd have im0 to shop for food and make dinner when she had late classes And many evenings she'd be buried in her textbooks leaving me on my own I was right about both matters but dead wrong about another one I expected she'd And her studies difficult and exhausting after 25 years away from the classroom Instead she reacted as if they were a supervitamin She'd listen wide awake to hours of lectures then come home and study late into the night She memorized masses of difficult material in her field (psychotherapy) far more iJr Allen Tough of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Or perhaps one should say pleasures pubAmong them: increased lic recognition and the rewards of the new knowledge itself Above all is the pleasure of playing with new ideas — the adult equivalent of the child's "messing about with new toys A friend of mine after 20 years of shop looked running a photo-suppl- y and dejected Recently he enweary rolled in two nighttime courses at a university —one in ancient history the other in ceramics And the glow he'd self-estee- m j long ago has "1 haven't had so much fun in years!" he says flost easily than she'd learned the local John Doric 68 retired in 1983 streets when we'd Now he attends Southern moved And she Learning is addictive (The more education people have the more they want no?) But it's an addiction that benefits both mind and body Intellectual gains The mind retains its powers only got by on less sleep than Methodist University in Dallas through use Familshe had in years iar tasks on the job or full-timajoring in English at home don't exerWhy people really like to learn My wife and I Mere cise it Thinking about something new surprised by her newfound vivacity but does Thai's why middle-age- d people who haven't challenged their minds with new psychologists and educators doing research on adult learning wouldn't have learning often seem compared been They’ve found that learning somewith their school-ag- e children thing new in adulthood can revitalize Among the mental abilities that learnthe mind the personality and even the ing keeps in shape are memory problembody solving the organizing of one's thoughts And yet this news has been largely and the generating of new ideas "Studies ignored because the emphasis on "lifelong show that these skills get rusty w hen peolearning" as the experts call it has ple don't use them" says Derails Thompson been on economic goals: upgrading one’s an educational psychologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta "Education job skills or acquiring new ones Emfastthat in our ployment experts say gets rid of the rust" When 1 was a young editor on a science changing world each of us is likely to need three or more major job changes in magazine our senior science adviser M as a man in his late 60s M'ho not only had the a lifetime So studies of lifelong learning focus on how adults can best retool verve of youth but also came up with more and better ideas at staff meetings than their minds for new kinds of jobs But most adults who get involved in anyone half his age I once asked him his a learning project— each year about one secret "I keep moving" he said "This is person in hve takes part in some major my fourth career Whenever I start sloweducational activity — have another puring down I know it’s time to learn someDr So in mind: thing new" says pleasure pose me dull-witt- BY ed - l it Never say die: Judith Cooper 42 years old and the mother of three earned her BJL in anthropology this spring Unfortunately many are afraid to try We fear we've lost the ability to learn anything new and will make fools of ourselves Research proves otherwise: The mind's potential for learning doesn't decrease until the onset ofold age—typically though not always in one's 70s A lovely middle-age- d woman I know used to be charmingly about her computer course the other night she said "As fast as I leam one program they throw another at me It's terrible!" And she giggled — this time with pride Emotional benefits This friend not about her mental abilities “It's too much for me!" she'd say giggling about many a subject Half a year ago she began taking nancredit courses at a nearby college and you should hear her now Speaking MORTON Learning is addictive: Sheila Kelley (r) was graduated from Boston College in May Next she’ll enter the New England School of Law in September HUNT MCE IS JUUT 20 only discovered that she still can leant she also began to c think better of herself That is one of the prime emotional benefits of adult learning says Richard E Peterson a research psychologist for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton NJ Other benefits are greater a sense of being in charge of self-relian- ce UN MMDE IMMUNE |