Professionals and students in the study of aging have become the advocates for education in gerontology. The introduction of gerontology into educational institutions can make a unique contribution in this period of re-evaluation and rededication of purpose in institutions of higher education. Education from infancy to old age is a necessity and a responsibility as society looks to the future; and educational institutions could become the sites of cooperation of science and society in the service of the human family in realization of the goals of lifelong learning.
Discussion:
Ruth B.Weg, PhD2 In the education symposia from 1970 to 1974, there has been an emerging change from uncertain apologists to confident proponents for gerontology. Time and life's interactions have brought maturity, and there is finally a comfortable commitment among us to the study of aging and the aged as a legitimate, scholarly, and rewarding area of inquiry and practice. We are able to address ourselves not to the myths, but to an examination of the tasks at hand, their implementation, and goals for the future. Institutions of Higher Learning in Contemporary Society In the current inflationary and recessionary climate, there is a "hold the line" philosophy developing in institutions of higher learning, with many having died of the disease and others hanging on for survival. There is considerable caution and retrenchment. Goals of higher education seem temporarily lost in the economic morass, but there still appears to be commitment to the notion that education is an important prerequisite for opportunity. The Assembly on University Goals and Governance of the American Academy of Arts and Science continues to call for a "new kind of higher educational enterprise." The Assembly sees the essential renewal of American higher education tied to fairness and equality of treatment: "to serve larger numbers, providing opportunity to men and women previously barred, making equality a more meaningful concept to a nation racked by energy, disillusion, uncertainty, and resentment, and to do these things in such a way that would preserve and advance the cause of learning" (Graubard, 1974). It is still true, however, that in the name of excellence, too many educational institutions are unnecessarily competitive, with the 2-year college reaching to be like the 4-year college, and the state colleges insisting they are universities, all attempting still to turn out students and faculty in the traditional mode. If institutions of higher learning are indeed to serve the "new students," then new multiple curricula need to evolve so that education may become more than a requirement for children and youth for passage to adulthood. Although young and older adults began in the late 19th century to become students, educational institutions have done little more than make a place in "continuing education" or set up "special" programs for older adults. Lifetime learning is not yet a priority in spite of the reality of the human learning requirements in the "eve" of the 21st century (Cross & Gould 1972). This symposium, under Tom Hickey's leadership, has brought colleagues together who each speak at least to one of four goals of higher education, if not to more than one. These purposes have been variously projected by the philosophers and practitioners of the "art" in institutions of higher learning. (1) For those who see higher education as the reaffirmation of the ancient and traditional role as intellectual centers of research involved primarily with knowledge building, Woodruff and Walsh have provided the research base for the characterization of the learning capacities of older adults who do continue to learn, albeit less efficiently than their younger cohorts. (2) For those who look for help in the potentiation of an individual's life-long curiosity with the capacity for humane, ethical behavior, Spinetta and Hickey's paper exhorts the institutions of higher learning to "flesh-out" cognitive learning and objective scientific methodology with human values.
1. Symposium discussion paper. 2. Assistant Dean, School ot Gerontology and Associate Professor of Biology, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, 90007.
448
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
Educational Intervention and Gerontology: An Integration1
(3) For those who expect higher education to be the designer of a better society, each of these calls upon all levels of educational institutions to be influenced by the facts from research, from the community that relate to life-span and aging, and to respond with appropriate changes. Peterson's Life-Span Education and Gerontology invokes planned learning environments all through life to "facilitate adjustment to social and individual changes." (4) For those who view institutions of higher learning as providers of trained manpower to meet anticipated national needs, there is Connelly's exploration of the impact of short-term training as one aspect of manpower development, its relationship to a theoretical perspective, and the difficulties of evaluation. Higher Education, Human Values, and Aging
Education and the Older Adult — Life-Span Education Human development does not stop at youth, and in the last 3 years more academicians have come to recognize that, while life does not begin at 40, it surely goes on after that. The changing needs so carefully identified for infancy, childhood, youth, and young adulthood do not magically vanish later to be replaced by the "problems of the aged." The need for dignity and self-concept, intimacy and love, the need for involvement and growth as an intellect and personality begin early in infancy and continue till the end of life. Palmore and Jeffers (1971) and Chebotarev (1971) independently found that two out of four predictors for longevity were psychosocial in origin - maintenance of a role in the society and a positive view of life. Both of these are responsive to environmental manipulation. Life-span education and the renaissance of moral and social values could potentiate the realization of these predictors for a much larger number of older people who have little or no access to societal supports: financial, emotional, and educational. Stanley Moses estimated that by this year, 1975, more than 80 million adults would be counted in learning situations outside traditional educational programs. These individuals may never go to a college as such, but their learning needs are evidenced by wide ranging "course" attendance. Nevertheless they have been generally ignored in educational planning, and their interests are met as they "come up" (Hesburgh, Miller, & Wharton, 1973). Beyond the work ethic, beyond upgrading skills, or providing for leisure, there is another significant benefit from attention to educational needs all through life. In a technological culture, life-span education and commitment of all educational institutions to human development from infancy to old age could accomplish the unification of science and society in the service of the human family. This could signal a new order or priority in which the gross national product and advances in science and technique would be measured against changing human requirements. There does not seem to be a logical alternative to lifelong, recurrent education in a culture looking ahead to frequent role change and impermanence. The task of higher education is to be provider of lifelong learning experiences for life-span development, as envisioned by Peterson, and by Woodruff and Walsh. If, as some suggest, we may soon be free of economic drudgery and move to a society based not on want or necessity, but on choice and free will; if the technological transformations find industrial production no longer the primary societal institution, then increased knowledge in the human resources may become a more direct measure of the wealth of a nation. Life styles, no longer linked to earning a living, will be more varied, not dependent on the frequently changed occupational status and geographic locations. Learning is inherent within life, not the stepping stone for future living (Ashby, 1974). In recent years, educators, governmental agencies, and politicians discuss and even legislate about the improvement of the quality of life for older persons; yet the qualitative leap in basic philosophical ap-
October 1975
449
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
What do we, as educators, researchers, practitioners, from every discipline, all with major commitment to gerontology, look for in institutions of higher learning? What can we expect? At a time when we are still groping our way out of the Watergate abyss, the terrible consequences of faltering ethics and morality may catalyze us into concern for the affective, spiritual, and esthetic life of the individual within the society. If so, then the "institutional response" may well emerge along the lines suggested by Spinettaand Hickey. The current mood among institutions of learning, susceptible to wooing the older learner and creating "training programs" for those who will work in this field may be largely a function of the economic crises due to decreased enrollment of the 18- to 22-year olds. Conversations among educators and researchers in gerontology are still assigning older persons to "extension," the "extracurricular," as if in fear of damage to the "professional image," the mode of excellence and the solid scientific approach. Under the current pressure of vocationalism and professionalism, there is the reinforcement of the natural "conservator" role of the institutions of higher learning. It gives us pause to remember that the pursuit of pure competence, vocationalism, and technological efficiency did not prevent the Nazi holocaust, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert and Jack Kennedy, or the Watergate nightmare. Before, or at least concurrent with, becoming a lawyer, doctor, teacher, researcher, one needs to become a person who thinks of issues and people in the real, complex world. Victor Frankl, a product of the mid-20th century German education, and a victim of its most inhuman expression, said about the values of the intelligentsia it produced, "I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidenek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers" (McGrath, 1974). There is no guarantee that achievement in the rigors of a scientific discipline will endow the individual with moral sensitivity and a sense of human obligation.
Into the Future For now and the foreseeable future, this suggestive causality gives "importance to the restoration of a balance between preparation for careers and the cultivation of values; these two functions of the academy must be associated with a more pervasive educational element." Career training, directed mainly to economic security and job qualifications, may easily become fixed in time and obsolete. It may neglect education for human values and the experiences that enable people to more ably make real choices of "how they shall live and grow, and who they shall be" (McGrath, 1974). Clifton Wharton, in a recent Science editorial, argues for the ascendancy of neither .general nor career education. Rather, he calls for a partnership within the context of continual educational participation by people of all ages, each involved in the kinds of learning experiences appropriate to their various needs. "In our future educational strategies, general education and career must join together, lest either, in standing alone proves an unfortunate societal liability" (Wharton, 1974). With the changing age structure of society no longer viewed as an aberration or temporary, commitment to education of adults of all ages becomes a necessity and responsibility of all institutions of learning. The seeds of lifetime learning need to be sown at the pre-school level so that a child may look forward to a life of educational experiences continually adapted for a particular life style. The near future will then find varied educational institutions as sites of recurrent and renewable learning to suit the person, the needs, the stage of life, and the social times. Education for all of life will neither be vocational, or remedial, or liberal arts, or entertainment, or continuing. All of these diverse purposes may become part of learning at many times and ages for different reasons of importance. Even the tentative beginnings of life-span education or age-integrated classes in California, Florida, New York, and various cities across the country are proof that more is possible (AED Report, 1974). With the significant increase in the older population and the sharp drop in brith rate, many colleges and universities appear to be taking the first steps in recurrent education, though still frequently for expedience rather than inclination. Hopefully, what Peterson, Spinetta and Hickey (and others) suggest is true, that the acknowledgment of aging as part of living can be instrumental in reshaping the university. Surely it is past the time when the drive for inquiry and dialogue can be satisfied only by the mass media. Those faculty whose area of specialization includes gerontology may have a particular contribution to make during this re-evaluation period in higher education--e.g., as part of a task force on humanities which sees the "whole person" and life cycle approach in gerontology as significant. This kind of development is possible only when society in and out of institutions begin to search for its collective conscience. Attitudes and the misinformation about aging and older persons which our schools and other institutions (advertisements, TV, literature, etc.) tend to provide, have made the passing on of wisdom a hope rather than a reality. Until that can be changed--by affecting all levels of education begin-
450
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
proach has not taken place. Mythology still largely controls practice, if not pronouncement. Happily, there are some signs of progress as Peterson indicates. Programs for older learners are indeed on the increase. However, many of the recent programs for older persons, and even some of the educational curricula for gerontologists, are characterized by little concern for the pressing problems of the world's human family. In a world now populated by many who are at odds with predetermined roles at work and at home, it would be paradoxical for education to remain largely a process of preparing the young for the existing job structure. If what is before us is the pluralistic post-industrial society, then institutions of higher learning may be obliged to expose for scrutiny and discussion the whole of human development. In a world of rapid change and "future shock," the shape of things to come remains fluid. We may continue to invoke primarily the predisgested minutiae of a variety of compartmentalized disciplines, but there are poor ^substitutes for the needed skills in exercising judgment and discrimination, in separating the essence of an issue from the ambience, in posing the critical questions, and finally in identifying the framework for seeking answers (Toffler, 1972,1974). I am encouraged by Connelly's critical evaluation of short-term training, its impact, methodology, and theoretical perspective, placing the impact of this kind of training in relation to the development of selfconcept. I look forward to further research suggested also by Woodruff and Walsh, for techniques that delineate the real capacity of older persons and identify environmental variables that account for some of the decrement in elderly compared with youth. I am persuaded by Spinetta and Hickey's assertion that the middle-aged and older persons are best fit to help youth achieve knowledge of limits and potentiality and that the aged can help to reshape the university with the strength of their experiences. This reshaping, they assert, must take place at the very heart of the university's definition and philosophy before changes can occur to deal with the concept of life-span education. Yet, institutions of higher learning in general have come to be "the conservators" of societal tradition and status quo. Spinetta and Hickey suggest that youth leaps at the first choice and lacks the modulation of the experience and values of the aged. This is a reflection of the societyopportunistic and enamoured of novelty and the "now" generation. It is helpful, therefore, to look at the society from which the total educational venture appears to get its direction, since change in higher education will be in terms of other societal institutions and behaviors. In a society devoted so overwhelmingly to economic values, so enamoured of continued growth and progress, "our sensibilities" have become sluggish (Gardner, 1967). Commitments are determined largely by their cost effectivensss and expediency. It is inevitable, therefore, that human values take a back seat; and one must look at the relationship between phenomenal economic growth and erosion of moral and social values.
ning with our pre-schools-institutions of higher learning will continue to equate education and science with fact consumption and discovery: and personal growth and human values with soft science, inconsistent with education for excellence. I concur with Spinetta and Hickey that educational intervention in gerontology may be education for survival into a mercurial future.
References
October 1975
451
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
Academy for Educational Development. Never too old to learn, Report, New York, 1974. Ashby, E. Adapting universities to a technological society. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1974. Chebotarev, D. Fight against old age. Gerontologist, 1971,11, (4:11,359-361. Cross, P.,&Gould, S. Explorations in non-traditionalstudy. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1972. Gardner, J. Self-renewal, Harperb Row, New York, 1967. Graubard, S. Thoughts on higher educational purposes and goals: A memorandum. Daedalus, 1974, 103, (4), 1-12. Hesburgh, T., Miller, P.,&Wharton, C. Patterns for lifelong learning. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1973. McGrath, E. Time bomb of technocratic education. Change, 1974,6, (7), 24-30. Palmore, E., & Jeffers, F. (Eds.), Predict/on of life span, recent findings, D.C. Heath, Lexington, Mass., 1971. Toffler, A. (Ed.), The futurists. Random House, New York, 1972. Toffler, A. (Ed.), Learning for tomorrow. Vintage, New York, 1974. Wharton, C. R. Education and the job market. Science, 1974, 755, 571.
Discussion:
Ruth B.Weg, PhD2 In the education symposia from 1970 to 1974, there has been an emerging change from uncertain apologists to confident proponents for gerontology. Time and life's interactions have brought maturity, and there is finally a comfortable commitment among us to the study of aging and the aged as a legitimate, scholarly, and rewarding area of inquiry and practice. We are able to address ourselves not to the myths, but to an examination of the tasks at hand, their implementation, and goals for the future. Institutions of Higher Learning in Contemporary Society In the current inflationary and recessionary climate, there is a "hold the line" philosophy developing in institutions of higher learning, with many having died of the disease and others hanging on for survival. There is considerable caution and retrenchment. Goals of higher education seem temporarily lost in the economic morass, but there still appears to be commitment to the notion that education is an important prerequisite for opportunity. The Assembly on University Goals and Governance of the American Academy of Arts and Science continues to call for a "new kind of higher educational enterprise." The Assembly sees the essential renewal of American higher education tied to fairness and equality of treatment: "to serve larger numbers, providing opportunity to men and women previously barred, making equality a more meaningful concept to a nation racked by energy, disillusion, uncertainty, and resentment, and to do these things in such a way that would preserve and advance the cause of learning" (Graubard, 1974). It is still true, however, that in the name of excellence, too many educational institutions are unnecessarily competitive, with the 2-year college reaching to be like the 4-year college, and the state colleges insisting they are universities, all attempting still to turn out students and faculty in the traditional mode. If institutions of higher learning are indeed to serve the "new students," then new multiple curricula need to evolve so that education may become more than a requirement for children and youth for passage to adulthood. Although young and older adults began in the late 19th century to become students, educational institutions have done little more than make a place in "continuing education" or set up "special" programs for older adults. Lifetime learning is not yet a priority in spite of the reality of the human learning requirements in the "eve" of the 21st century (Cross & Gould 1972). This symposium, under Tom Hickey's leadership, has brought colleagues together who each speak at least to one of four goals of higher education, if not to more than one. These purposes have been variously projected by the philosophers and practitioners of the "art" in institutions of higher learning. (1) For those who see higher education as the reaffirmation of the ancient and traditional role as intellectual centers of research involved primarily with knowledge building, Woodruff and Walsh have provided the research base for the characterization of the learning capacities of older adults who do continue to learn, albeit less efficiently than their younger cohorts. (2) For those who look for help in the potentiation of an individual's life-long curiosity with the capacity for humane, ethical behavior, Spinetta and Hickey's paper exhorts the institutions of higher learning to "flesh-out" cognitive learning and objective scientific methodology with human values.
1. Symposium discussion paper. 2. Assistant Dean, School ot Gerontology and Associate Professor of Biology, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, 90007.
448
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
Educational Intervention and Gerontology: An Integration1
(3) For those who expect higher education to be the designer of a better society, each of these calls upon all levels of educational institutions to be influenced by the facts from research, from the community that relate to life-span and aging, and to respond with appropriate changes. Peterson's Life-Span Education and Gerontology invokes planned learning environments all through life to "facilitate adjustment to social and individual changes." (4) For those who view institutions of higher learning as providers of trained manpower to meet anticipated national needs, there is Connelly's exploration of the impact of short-term training as one aspect of manpower development, its relationship to a theoretical perspective, and the difficulties of evaluation. Higher Education, Human Values, and Aging
Education and the Older Adult — Life-Span Education Human development does not stop at youth, and in the last 3 years more academicians have come to recognize that, while life does not begin at 40, it surely goes on after that. The changing needs so carefully identified for infancy, childhood, youth, and young adulthood do not magically vanish later to be replaced by the "problems of the aged." The need for dignity and self-concept, intimacy and love, the need for involvement and growth as an intellect and personality begin early in infancy and continue till the end of life. Palmore and Jeffers (1971) and Chebotarev (1971) independently found that two out of four predictors for longevity were psychosocial in origin - maintenance of a role in the society and a positive view of life. Both of these are responsive to environmental manipulation. Life-span education and the renaissance of moral and social values could potentiate the realization of these predictors for a much larger number of older people who have little or no access to societal supports: financial, emotional, and educational. Stanley Moses estimated that by this year, 1975, more than 80 million adults would be counted in learning situations outside traditional educational programs. These individuals may never go to a college as such, but their learning needs are evidenced by wide ranging "course" attendance. Nevertheless they have been generally ignored in educational planning, and their interests are met as they "come up" (Hesburgh, Miller, & Wharton, 1973). Beyond the work ethic, beyond upgrading skills, or providing for leisure, there is another significant benefit from attention to educational needs all through life. In a technological culture, life-span education and commitment of all educational institutions to human development from infancy to old age could accomplish the unification of science and society in the service of the human family. This could signal a new order or priority in which the gross national product and advances in science and technique would be measured against changing human requirements. There does not seem to be a logical alternative to lifelong, recurrent education in a culture looking ahead to frequent role change and impermanence. The task of higher education is to be provider of lifelong learning experiences for life-span development, as envisioned by Peterson, and by Woodruff and Walsh. If, as some suggest, we may soon be free of economic drudgery and move to a society based not on want or necessity, but on choice and free will; if the technological transformations find industrial production no longer the primary societal institution, then increased knowledge in the human resources may become a more direct measure of the wealth of a nation. Life styles, no longer linked to earning a living, will be more varied, not dependent on the frequently changed occupational status and geographic locations. Learning is inherent within life, not the stepping stone for future living (Ashby, 1974). In recent years, educators, governmental agencies, and politicians discuss and even legislate about the improvement of the quality of life for older persons; yet the qualitative leap in basic philosophical ap-
October 1975
449
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
What do we, as educators, researchers, practitioners, from every discipline, all with major commitment to gerontology, look for in institutions of higher learning? What can we expect? At a time when we are still groping our way out of the Watergate abyss, the terrible consequences of faltering ethics and morality may catalyze us into concern for the affective, spiritual, and esthetic life of the individual within the society. If so, then the "institutional response" may well emerge along the lines suggested by Spinettaand Hickey. The current mood among institutions of learning, susceptible to wooing the older learner and creating "training programs" for those who will work in this field may be largely a function of the economic crises due to decreased enrollment of the 18- to 22-year olds. Conversations among educators and researchers in gerontology are still assigning older persons to "extension," the "extracurricular," as if in fear of damage to the "professional image," the mode of excellence and the solid scientific approach. Under the current pressure of vocationalism and professionalism, there is the reinforcement of the natural "conservator" role of the institutions of higher learning. It gives us pause to remember that the pursuit of pure competence, vocationalism, and technological efficiency did not prevent the Nazi holocaust, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert and Jack Kennedy, or the Watergate nightmare. Before, or at least concurrent with, becoming a lawyer, doctor, teacher, researcher, one needs to become a person who thinks of issues and people in the real, complex world. Victor Frankl, a product of the mid-20th century German education, and a victim of its most inhuman expression, said about the values of the intelligentsia it produced, "I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidenek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers" (McGrath, 1974). There is no guarantee that achievement in the rigors of a scientific discipline will endow the individual with moral sensitivity and a sense of human obligation.
Into the Future For now and the foreseeable future, this suggestive causality gives "importance to the restoration of a balance between preparation for careers and the cultivation of values; these two functions of the academy must be associated with a more pervasive educational element." Career training, directed mainly to economic security and job qualifications, may easily become fixed in time and obsolete. It may neglect education for human values and the experiences that enable people to more ably make real choices of "how they shall live and grow, and who they shall be" (McGrath, 1974). Clifton Wharton, in a recent Science editorial, argues for the ascendancy of neither .general nor career education. Rather, he calls for a partnership within the context of continual educational participation by people of all ages, each involved in the kinds of learning experiences appropriate to their various needs. "In our future educational strategies, general education and career must join together, lest either, in standing alone proves an unfortunate societal liability" (Wharton, 1974). With the changing age structure of society no longer viewed as an aberration or temporary, commitment to education of adults of all ages becomes a necessity and responsibility of all institutions of learning. The seeds of lifetime learning need to be sown at the pre-school level so that a child may look forward to a life of educational experiences continually adapted for a particular life style. The near future will then find varied educational institutions as sites of recurrent and renewable learning to suit the person, the needs, the stage of life, and the social times. Education for all of life will neither be vocational, or remedial, or liberal arts, or entertainment, or continuing. All of these diverse purposes may become part of learning at many times and ages for different reasons of importance. Even the tentative beginnings of life-span education or age-integrated classes in California, Florida, New York, and various cities across the country are proof that more is possible (AED Report, 1974). With the significant increase in the older population and the sharp drop in brith rate, many colleges and universities appear to be taking the first steps in recurrent education, though still frequently for expedience rather than inclination. Hopefully, what Peterson, Spinetta and Hickey (and others) suggest is true, that the acknowledgment of aging as part of living can be instrumental in reshaping the university. Surely it is past the time when the drive for inquiry and dialogue can be satisfied only by the mass media. Those faculty whose area of specialization includes gerontology may have a particular contribution to make during this re-evaluation period in higher education--e.g., as part of a task force on humanities which sees the "whole person" and life cycle approach in gerontology as significant. This kind of development is possible only when society in and out of institutions begin to search for its collective conscience. Attitudes and the misinformation about aging and older persons which our schools and other institutions (advertisements, TV, literature, etc.) tend to provide, have made the passing on of wisdom a hope rather than a reality. Until that can be changed--by affecting all levels of education begin-
450
The Gerontologist
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
proach has not taken place. Mythology still largely controls practice, if not pronouncement. Happily, there are some signs of progress as Peterson indicates. Programs for older learners are indeed on the increase. However, many of the recent programs for older persons, and even some of the educational curricula for gerontologists, are characterized by little concern for the pressing problems of the world's human family. In a world now populated by many who are at odds with predetermined roles at work and at home, it would be paradoxical for education to remain largely a process of preparing the young for the existing job structure. If what is before us is the pluralistic post-industrial society, then institutions of higher learning may be obliged to expose for scrutiny and discussion the whole of human development. In a world of rapid change and "future shock," the shape of things to come remains fluid. We may continue to invoke primarily the predisgested minutiae of a variety of compartmentalized disciplines, but there are poor ^substitutes for the needed skills in exercising judgment and discrimination, in separating the essence of an issue from the ambience, in posing the critical questions, and finally in identifying the framework for seeking answers (Toffler, 1972,1974). I am encouraged by Connelly's critical evaluation of short-term training, its impact, methodology, and theoretical perspective, placing the impact of this kind of training in relation to the development of selfconcept. I look forward to further research suggested also by Woodruff and Walsh, for techniques that delineate the real capacity of older persons and identify environmental variables that account for some of the decrement in elderly compared with youth. I am persuaded by Spinetta and Hickey's assertion that the middle-aged and older persons are best fit to help youth achieve knowledge of limits and potentiality and that the aged can help to reshape the university with the strength of their experiences. This reshaping, they assert, must take place at the very heart of the university's definition and philosophy before changes can occur to deal with the concept of life-span education. Yet, institutions of higher learning in general have come to be "the conservators" of societal tradition and status quo. Spinetta and Hickey suggest that youth leaps at the first choice and lacks the modulation of the experience and values of the aged. This is a reflection of the societyopportunistic and enamoured of novelty and the "now" generation. It is helpful, therefore, to look at the society from which the total educational venture appears to get its direction, since change in higher education will be in terms of other societal institutions and behaviors. In a society devoted so overwhelmingly to economic values, so enamoured of continued growth and progress, "our sensibilities" have become sluggish (Gardner, 1967). Commitments are determined largely by their cost effectivensss and expediency. It is inevitable, therefore, that human values take a back seat; and one must look at the relationship between phenomenal economic growth and erosion of moral and social values.
ning with our pre-schools-institutions of higher learning will continue to equate education and science with fact consumption and discovery: and personal growth and human values with soft science, inconsistent with education for excellence. I concur with Spinetta and Hickey that educational intervention in gerontology may be education for survival into a mercurial future.
References
October 1975
451
Downloaded from http://gerontologist.oxfordjournals.org/ at Purdue University Libraries ADMN on June 6, 2016
Academy for Educational Development. Never too old to learn, Report, New York, 1974. Ashby, E. Adapting universities to a technological society. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1974. Chebotarev, D. Fight against old age. Gerontologist, 1971,11, (4:11,359-361. Cross, P.,&Gould, S. Explorations in non-traditionalstudy. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1972. Gardner, J. Self-renewal, Harperb Row, New York, 1967. Graubard, S. Thoughts on higher educational purposes and goals: A memorandum. Daedalus, 1974, 103, (4), 1-12. Hesburgh, T., Miller, P.,&Wharton, C. Patterns for lifelong learning. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1973. McGrath, E. Time bomb of technocratic education. Change, 1974,6, (7), 24-30. Palmore, E., & Jeffers, F. (Eds.), Predict/on of life span, recent findings, D.C. Heath, Lexington, Mass., 1971. Toffler, A. (Ed.), The futurists. Random House, New York, 1972. Toffler, A. (Ed.), Learning for tomorrow. Vintage, New York, 1974. Wharton, C. R. Education and the job market. Science, 1974, 755, 571.
