On Saturday, January 13, 2018, I attended the retreat for the Life Course Scholars Program at the Martin Johnson House in La Jolla, California. The retreat allowed me to become closer with this year’s LCS cohort, as well as Professor Bussell and Professor Lewis. I had a significant amount of interaction with everyone, and was able to get to know them better. I felt very well connected. During our retreat, we had team building exercises and played a board game that focused on life outcomes with class privilege, race, birth weight and parents’ level of education and employment as contributing factors. My team was the only one to be removed from the game by way of being unable to afford medical bills from a serious car accident, which led to us passing away. This was eye-opening, as it shed light on the nature of how the factors that constitute social privilege can truly make or break a person. In some cases, such as being unable to afford medical bills for life-saving procedures, it can even claim your life.
We also took a walk around the area surrounding the Martin Johnson House and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, examining the terrain from the perspective of someone who was disabled or older. The many hills in La Jolla, as well as slanted inclines and many staircases in the gardens, which I am able to navigate with ease, would be impossible for someone much older and who is more physically frail. The thought of someday being confined and severely limited to spaces that I am able to navigate on my own when my body becomes frail was very humbling. It helped me step into the shoes of the older people around me who require my help, such as when getting out of the car to walk to the front door, and reminded me to always be patient and understanding with them.
At the end of the retreat, we did one final activity where we envisioned our lives when we are 80 years old. Although I hoped that I would have my independence, I could not shake the experience during the board game from my mind. Life is a constant balancing act, for we must make healthy choices to age gracefully and be happy, healthy and independent adults in our old age. However, I also knew that I must enjoy the moments in life as I go through them. I should not rush through life attempting to ensure that these steps to “healthy aging” are consistently met, while forgetting to enjoy the process of getting there. As the board game showed, even when you are doing all the right things, something random, unexpected and beyond your control can come out of nowhere and take everything from you, including your life. This idea of balancing two differing mindsets is something I wish to achieve as I go through my life.
In the late morning, we had a presentation from Dr. Patricia Benesh on conducting an oral interview of an elder family member, which is one of the big assignments for this class. I am planning to interview my maternal grandmother. Trish delivered a very impressive and detailed presentation on the assignment, then we all took a lunch break. I had been sitting at the end of the table with no one to my left. As I was eating, Trish sat down next to me and began to start a conversation.
I grew up with three sets of grandparents who all played a very active role in my upbringing. In addition, my mom is an elementary school teacher, and I grew up around many of the teachers at my elementary school where my mom also worked. As a result of these experiences, I was a very precocious child who felt comfortable interacting with adults. As Trish and I talked about everything from the assignment she had facilitated and who I planned to interview, to where we were both from, to politics, to traveling, to family genealogy, I was reminded of this fact and its importance in helping and connecting with senior citizens.
Generational ideological differences can be an obstacle for communication and understanding between elders and young people, but at their core, people are the same, no matter what age. I felt this during my conversation with Trish. As amazed as I was by her accomplishments, experiences and wisdom she had to pass on, I recognized that she had also learned from my speaking about my own life and perspective. Our interaction was based off of the unspoken assumption that both parties had something unique and important to bring to the conversation which was valuable enough to be processed and understood by the other person. Modern American society is heavily age-segregated, wherein people typically spend time with people close in age to them. This causes elderly people and the issues facing their lives to be ignored by the mainstream media, and instead replaced by stereotypes of elderly people as being childish, cranky, or helpless and deserving of institutionalization, especially since the media focuses on young people and maintaining a youthful image and lifestyle. However, I believe that if American society re-emphasized greater communication between younger and older generations, if younger and elderly people took more time to have extended, one-on-one conversations with one another--such as the one I had with Trish over lunch--with the aim to understand one another, those stereotypes of elders, as well as elders’ perceptions of the younger generation, would rapidly fade. In my case, Trish and I came from vastly different backgrounds and had witnessed different eras of history. Regardless, we found that we had many things in common. I feel that communication would be much easier and have a greater flow between elders and young people the more they engaged in conversations such as this, especially after discovering commonalities with one another. In addition, this could possibly even have political benefits, as the imaginative, passionate views of young people aiming to create change combined with the wisdom, life experience, and historical context that elderly people possess could lead to new solutions to modern-day political issues.
We also took a walk around the area surrounding the Martin Johnson House and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, examining the terrain from the perspective of someone who was disabled or older. The many hills in La Jolla, as well as slanted inclines and many staircases in the gardens, which I am able to navigate with ease, would be impossible for someone much older and who is more physically frail. The thought of someday being confined and severely limited to spaces that I am able to navigate on my own when my body becomes frail was very humbling. It helped me step into the shoes of the older people around me who require my help, such as when getting out of the car to walk to the front door, and reminded me to always be patient and understanding with them.
At the end of the retreat, we did one final activity where we envisioned our lives when we are 80 years old. Although I hoped that I would have my independence, I could not shake the experience during the board game from my mind. Life is a constant balancing act, for we must make healthy choices to age gracefully and be happy, healthy and independent adults in our old age. However, I also knew that I must enjoy the moments in life as I go through them. I should not rush through life attempting to ensure that these steps to “healthy aging” are consistently met, while forgetting to enjoy the process of getting there. As the board game showed, even when you are doing all the right things, something random, unexpected and beyond your control can come out of nowhere and take everything from you, including your life. This idea of balancing two differing mindsets is something I wish to achieve as I go through my life.
In the late morning, we had a presentation from Dr. Patricia Benesh on conducting an oral interview of an elder family member, which is one of the big assignments for this class. I am planning to interview my maternal grandmother. Trish delivered a very impressive and detailed presentation on the assignment, then we all took a lunch break. I had been sitting at the end of the table with no one to my left. As I was eating, Trish sat down next to me and began to start a conversation.
I grew up with three sets of grandparents who all played a very active role in my upbringing. In addition, my mom is an elementary school teacher, and I grew up around many of the teachers at my elementary school where my mom also worked. As a result of these experiences, I was a very precocious child who felt comfortable interacting with adults. As Trish and I talked about everything from the assignment she had facilitated and who I planned to interview, to where we were both from, to politics, to traveling, to family genealogy, I was reminded of this fact and its importance in helping and connecting with senior citizens.
Generational ideological differences can be an obstacle for communication and understanding between elders and young people, but at their core, people are the same, no matter what age. I felt this during my conversation with Trish. As amazed as I was by her accomplishments, experiences and wisdom she had to pass on, I recognized that she had also learned from my speaking about my own life and perspective. Our interaction was based off of the unspoken assumption that both parties had something unique and important to bring to the conversation which was valuable enough to be processed and understood by the other person. Modern American society is heavily age-segregated, wherein people typically spend time with people close in age to them. This causes elderly people and the issues facing their lives to be ignored by the mainstream media, and instead replaced by stereotypes of elderly people as being childish, cranky, or helpless and deserving of institutionalization, especially since the media focuses on young people and maintaining a youthful image and lifestyle. However, I believe that if American society re-emphasized greater communication between younger and older generations, if younger and elderly people took more time to have extended, one-on-one conversations with one another--such as the one I had with Trish over lunch--with the aim to understand one another, those stereotypes of elders, as well as elders’ perceptions of the younger generation, would rapidly fade. In my case, Trish and I came from vastly different backgrounds and had witnessed different eras of history. Regardless, we found that we had many things in common. I feel that communication would be much easier and have a greater flow between elders and young people the more they engaged in conversations such as this, especially after discovering commonalities with one another. In addition, this could possibly even have political benefits, as the imaginative, passionate views of young people aiming to create change combined with the wisdom, life experience, and historical context that elderly people possess could lead to new solutions to modern-day political issues.