CAN YOU TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS

 

Some Encouraging Facts About the Power of Lifelong Learning

 

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy: the sense of order imposed by the disciplined adult intelligence – Norman Podhoretz

 

My father will turn 90 in a few months.  He is a marvelous example of a lifelong learner and teacher.  He was a researcher and university professor.  Just last summer he traveled to Australia to present a paper at an international gathering of the academic society he is a fellow in.  He belongs to and regularly attends the Athenaeum Society – a fellowship of lifelong learners who come together once a month to learn.  As I think of my father’s thirst for knowledge and wisdom, I return to the question I have used as the title for this blog:  can you teach an old dog new tricks?

 

How many of these statements are inevitable truths?

 

• Intelligence is a function of how many neurons you have and how fast those neurons work
• Older adults can’ learn as well as young people
• The brain cannot grow new brain cells
• Connections between brain neurons are relatively fixed throughout life

 

Actually each of these statements is false.  In his book The Mature Mind – The Positive Power of an Aging Brain, Dr. Gene D. Cohen reports on research over the last two decades which discovered:

 

• New brain cells form throughout life
• The brain is continually resculpting itself in response to our experiences and learning
• The brain’s emotional circuitry matures and becomes more balanced as we age
• The brain’s left and right hemispheres are more equally utilized by older adults

 

Dr. Cohen delivers the hopeful news that much of the decline in mental abilities formerly associated with aging is not caused by aging, per se, but by specific illnesses and diseases such as “microstrokes,” Alzheimer’s, and depression.  I strongly recommend Dr. Cohen’s book to you if you want to learn how to maximize the potential of the Mature Mind.  And, I would also encourage you to consider subscribing to Stephanie West Allen’s blog Brains on Purpose.  Stephanie reports almost daily on new breakthroughs in neuroscience and their application to everyday living.

 

Instead of thinking of the post-retirement years as a steady decline, both physically and mentally, I would suggest we should envision it as a long and gradual climb.  We can be so grateful for the technological and medical advances which allow older bodies and minds to remain vibrant and relevant.  How marvelous it is that we live in an age when elders aren’t just sharing wisdom but have so many opportunities to continue to learn, experience, share and preserve. 

 

Late in his life Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”  What is your vision for the future you will create in your “golden years?” 

 

The Best is Yet to Come!!!

 

“Your brain never stops developing and changing.  It’s been doing it from the time you were an embryo and will keep on doing it all your life.  And this ability, perhaps, represents its greatest strength.”—James Trefil, Ph.D., physicist and author of thirty books helping the public understand science

Comments

[StephanieWestAllen]

Thanks very much for mentioning my blog in your post, John A. An honor!

[John A Warnick]

Stephanie, an honor that is fully deserved.  As I am venturing into what Im calling the Gift of Learning I feel so inadequate in terms of  a level of expertise in neuroscience to be able to evaluate the truly important from the hype that may sometimes surface.  So if you ever see that Seedlings is guilty of hype or passing along someone elses hype, please use your softest and kindest voice to call it to our attention.  We will be most grateful.  Our next blog is inspired in part by Albert Einstein and the following blog will feature a remarkable story about creativity that comes from Dr. Cohens book...I hope you will enjoy this series of postings.  Hugs...John A