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Can old dogs learn new tricks? INTERVIEWER: "They say that old dogs can't learn new tricks. One study undertaken here in Brisbane, suggested that theory was wrong. With Adult Learner week coming up again on the second to eighth of September, maybe it's time we thought about a bit of training. With us today is Karen Fainges, a local trainer and researcher." "Karen, you say that not only can old dogs learn new tricks, but also that they are good at it?" KAREN: (Laughs) "Well, I don't know about the phrase old dogs, but yes older learners are actually very good at picking up new skills if their special needs are taken into account. They are slower, but the information they learn stays with them longer and is more often applied." INTERVIEWER: "Special needs?" KAREN: "Well, my study was for the over fifties, so most of them weren't really old, but the same holds true up to any age. The oldest member in my study was over 70. There are the purely physical things, making sure you talk loud enough that they can hear you, that printing is big enough to be read easily, that there are plenty of breaks that sort of thing. All the things any good trainer should consider regardless of age. " "The most important thing was actually to take their life experience into account. Older learners often had very little formal training and may have been told that it was not for them, or they couldn't do it. That was especially true for women and those in lower income groups. A lot of care is needed to make sure they realise how much learning they have done since then. It just hasn't been learnt in a classroom. It's really important for the trainer to realise that uneducated does not mean dumb." "I was studying people learning computers in particular and the most interesting thing for me was the fact that that old fear of breaking the computer was found to be a hold over from the Depression. One thing just about everyone said was that, in the old days, if something broke down you had to fix it yourself. Nowadays, you tend to throw it away and get a new one. For older learners, it was very important to learn how it worked so they could fix it, not just what to do to make it work." INTERVIEWER: "So the old thing of just 'push this button' isn't enough." KAREN: "No, they had to know why that button was important, how it worked, all the background workings. This was interesting, because it is almost exactly the sort of thing that tends to get left out of beginner courses. That's one reason why so many were frustrated. Classes were going too fast, not because they were learning too slow, but because they were trying to learn so much more. It was a fascinating subject. The methodology and results are on my website http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/kfainges/pr01.htm if anyone wants to look into this more closely. This goes doubly true for anyone that has ever said to themselves, I couldn't, or had people say they shouldn't. It's just not true, anyone can learn regardless of his or her age. And should in my opinion. It makes life more interesting." INTERVIEWER: "But what if people just don't want to learn. They might say they've done their learning already." KAREN: "Well that's fair enough, but the information out there is that many people do want to continue learning. Many times when people say that don't want to learn any more, they mean they don't want to go back to the images of their old schooling, sitting up straight and getting cuts with the cane. Learning just isn't like that anymore. It's more learner driven. The person paying the money says how they want to learn. And that's a good thing. " "A lot of people seem to agree with me. The N.C.V.E.R group says that "Post-school education is increasingly populated by older learners: Adults over the age of 25 now account for a 60% of vocational education students and 50% of all university undergraduates. That's undergrads, people starting from scratch." "In community adult education, the ACE courses you get in your mail, over half of the learners are over the age of 38 years. A recent study by the Australian National Training Association on life long learning found that 44% were learning for pleasure, and 45% were learning because of work. That's a lot of people." ANNOUCER: "But over 38 isn't really old." KAREN: (Laughs again) "True, very true, the closer I get to it, the more I realise that. But there is a thriving group out there purely for the over fifties and it's doing a lot of work fostering life long learning, the University for the Third Age." INTERVIEWER: "I've heard about that, is that a uni just for older learners?" KAREN: "Yes it is. It's run by older learners for older learners. It's not an actual bricks and mortar uni like U of Q, but there is an office here in Brisbane at Level 1, Travel House, 243 Edward Street. Their phone number is (07) 3211 8117. I would recommend giving them a call, they are real nice people. They have online and face to face courses on subjects from scrabble to advanced computing. I'm not allowed in being too young, but I've heard great things. Actually I'm joking, they have been a lot of help to me while doing my study." INTERVIEWER: "So what would you recommend for people to do during Adult Learner Week?" KAREN: "Well, I would have a look at something that you've always wanted to learn, it might be an instrument, another language or doing something more with your computer and go out and sign up for a course, buy a book or a tape, hire a tutor, whatever works best for you. Lifelong learning is a real good idea. As Alvan Hadley Jr. said, 'You stop learning you die'." ends Contact us for more information on these articles or our services. Ph: 07 33564807 or email kfainges@bigpond.net.au All articles are copyrighted, but if you email me, I will give permission to copy it for just about anything. If you would like an article written for your magazine or newspaper, just email the details to kfainges@bigpond.net.au.
I would be happy to be a guest speaker at your event as well.
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