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Lessons in Lifelong Learning

Lessons in Lifelong Learning PERSONAL R ecent interviews with two reflections in retirement and their senior citizens-Arthur Gowan perceptions on the value of con- tinuing one’s education. and Margaret Warning, who, in retirement, returned to take Both are retired faculty at Iowa university courses-offered me State University. They now live in models of the benefits of lifelong a retirement community in Ames, also be of use Iowa. education that may to others. These two people Arthur Gowan has a Ph.D. in dramatically belie society‘s educational statistics and served stereotyped images of the elderly for many years as dean of admis- as set in their ways, parochial, or sions at Iowa State. After his retire- unwilling to explore new temtory. ment he returned as a student to I initiated these interviews for Iowa State to audit all the somewhat selfish reasons. Arthur undergraduate and graduate Gowan is my father, and Margaret courses in meteorology and Arthur Wan nporb to a rogloaal war notwork Warning’s life suggests parallels to climatology. I asked him about the on his ham radio. my own. I wanted to understand origins of his interest in weather. and home economics, as well as her life. bust describes this better how they faced their later He responded, “I have been years and to learn what lessons interested in this subject for many graduate degrees in home ability to access various periods of ones life in Rmbrance of their experiences might offer me. years. I grew up on a farm in economics and sociology. She is Tbings Pmt: Zora Neale Hurston has written, northwest Iowa before television, an emeritus professor and former For man is a creature without “There are years that ask ques- radio, and the telephone reached department head of textiles and area. We couldn’t get weather any fixed age, who has the tions and years that answer.” I that clothing at Iowa State. am, in midlife, still asking ques- I learned to watch the sky. Warning’s retirement pursuits faculty of becoming, in a few reports. If you saw a heavy bank of clouds have taken her in another direc- seconds, many years younger, tions. These perceptive older peo- ple have some of the answers to to the southwest or the west that tion. She too began sitting in on and who, surrounded by the my questions. looked threatening, you would go courses at Iowa State, participating walls of time through which he to the cellar.” in a program that encourages has lived, floats within them Upon completing his course retired faculty to audit courses but as though in a basin the work, Gowan put his learning to when classroom space is available surface level of which is con- work in several ways. He helped and professors allow auditing. stantly changing, so as to bring an Iowa State physics professor With support from Enghsh him into the range now of one prepare a book on tornadoes, pro- Department faculty, Warning epoch, now of another. vided remh data on jet airplane decided to pursue an MA in Becoming a creative writer in is an avenue to contrails for a University of Illinois English. She completed the degree ones later years addresing the central tasks that professor, and collected local with honors in the spring of 1988, psychologist Erik Erikson sees as weather information for television at the age of seventy-thm- decades later than the age at primary in maturity and old age: station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa. can acquiring a clearer and fuller He has also combined his new ex- which society assumes one take up creative writing and pro- identity, assessing ones own life pertise in weather with a growing radio. He now good work. And older cycle, and guiding the next interest in amateur duce citizens themselves often consider generation. A committee that reports to several weather net- such writing to be simply a hobby recently nominated Warning’s works across the United States. Gowan’s boyhood interest in or pleasant diversion. work for an award said, The life histories of these two weather lay dormant for decades. Her thesis Fitst Fiigbt is a testa- “Margaret’s poems are the product senior students are perhaps not It has flowered in later life and ment to the rewards of rigorous of a woman who has lived a full typical. Both have interdisciplinary prompted him to pursue hsh reflection and thoughtful writing. life and is unafraid to examine it. backgrounds. Both realize the interests, make a wealth of new Its thm parts review her Happily, her examination does not possibilities of continuing self- contacts, and engage a subject of childhood and education, ex- lead to sullen inmspemon, but to renewal and creative involvement fascination and importance. An periences teaching and traveling affirmation and acceptance. Such in their own and others’ lives. inhouse newsletter at station WHO abroad, and retirement years. Like vision is not typical of poets- They bring to the classroom noted that Gowan has “weathered the Zulu weaver in one of her particularly those in a master’s decades of experience as student retirement” quite nicely. poems who is weaving his life in program-and, in Margaret’s case, and teacher. This experience pro- Margaret Wing has yam into a tapestry, she has used it reveals not only her maturity, her poetry to reflect intensely on vides additional credibility for their undergraduate degrees in Enghsh but also her generosity of spirit.” 28 A Adult Learning http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Adult Learning SAGE

Lessons in Lifelong Learning

Adult Learning , Volume 1 (7): 1 – May 1, 1990

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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 1990 American Association for Adult and Continuing Education
ISSN
1045-1595
eISSN
2162-4070
DOI
10.1177/104515959000100710
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PERSONAL R ecent interviews with two reflections in retirement and their senior citizens-Arthur Gowan perceptions on the value of con- tinuing one’s education. and Margaret Warning, who, in retirement, returned to take Both are retired faculty at Iowa university courses-offered me State University. They now live in models of the benefits of lifelong a retirement community in Ames, also be of use Iowa. education that may to others. These two people Arthur Gowan has a Ph.D. in dramatically belie society‘s educational statistics and served stereotyped images of the elderly for many years as dean of admis- as set in their ways, parochial, or sions at Iowa State. After his retire- unwilling to explore new temtory. ment he returned as a student to I initiated these interviews for Iowa State to audit all the somewhat selfish reasons. Arthur undergraduate and graduate Gowan is my father, and Margaret courses in meteorology and Arthur Wan nporb to a rogloaal war notwork Warning’s life suggests parallels to climatology. I asked him about the on his ham radio. my own. I wanted to understand origins of his interest in weather. and home economics, as well as her life. bust describes this better how they faced their later He responded, “I have been years and to learn what lessons interested in this subject for many graduate degrees in home ability to access various periods of ones life in Rmbrance of their experiences might offer me. years. I grew up on a farm in economics and sociology. She is Tbings Pmt: Zora Neale Hurston has written, northwest Iowa before television, an emeritus professor and former For man is a creature without “There are years that ask ques- radio, and the telephone reached department head of textiles and area. We couldn’t get weather any fixed age, who has the tions and years that answer.” I that clothing at Iowa State. am, in midlife, still asking ques- I learned to watch the sky. Warning’s retirement pursuits faculty of becoming, in a few reports. If you saw a heavy bank of clouds have taken her in another direc- seconds, many years younger, tions. These perceptive older peo- ple have some of the answers to to the southwest or the west that tion. She too began sitting in on and who, surrounded by the my questions. looked threatening, you would go courses at Iowa State, participating walls of time through which he to the cellar.” in a program that encourages has lived, floats within them Upon completing his course retired faculty to audit courses but as though in a basin the work, Gowan put his learning to when classroom space is available surface level of which is con- work in several ways. He helped and professors allow auditing. stantly changing, so as to bring an Iowa State physics professor With support from Enghsh him into the range now of one prepare a book on tornadoes, pro- Department faculty, Warning epoch, now of another. vided remh data on jet airplane decided to pursue an MA in Becoming a creative writer in is an avenue to contrails for a University of Illinois English. She completed the degree ones later years addresing the central tasks that professor, and collected local with honors in the spring of 1988, psychologist Erik Erikson sees as weather information for television at the age of seventy-thm- decades later than the age at primary in maturity and old age: station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa. can acquiring a clearer and fuller He has also combined his new ex- which society assumes one take up creative writing and pro- identity, assessing ones own life pertise in weather with a growing radio. He now good work. And older cycle, and guiding the next interest in amateur duce citizens themselves often consider generation. A committee that reports to several weather net- such writing to be simply a hobby recently nominated Warning’s works across the United States. Gowan’s boyhood interest in or pleasant diversion. work for an award said, The life histories of these two weather lay dormant for decades. Her thesis Fitst Fiigbt is a testa- “Margaret’s poems are the product senior students are perhaps not It has flowered in later life and ment to the rewards of rigorous of a woman who has lived a full typical. Both have interdisciplinary prompted him to pursue hsh reflection and thoughtful writing. life and is unafraid to examine it. backgrounds. Both realize the interests, make a wealth of new Its thm parts review her Happily, her examination does not possibilities of continuing self- contacts, and engage a subject of childhood and education, ex- lead to sullen inmspemon, but to renewal and creative involvement fascination and importance. An periences teaching and traveling affirmation and acceptance. Such in their own and others’ lives. inhouse newsletter at station WHO abroad, and retirement years. Like vision is not typical of poets- They bring to the classroom noted that Gowan has “weathered the Zulu weaver in one of her particularly those in a master’s decades of experience as student retirement” quite nicely. poems who is weaving his life in program-and, in Margaret’s case, and teacher. This experience pro- Margaret Wing has yam into a tapestry, she has used it reveals not only her maturity, her poetry to reflect intensely on vides additional credibility for their undergraduate degrees in Enghsh but also her generosity of spirit.” 28 A Adult Learning

Journal

Adult LearningSAGE

Published: May 1, 1990

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