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We are so used to this statement that it no longer creates a positive reaction, but to me this puts us in a dangerous situation which is why I have decided to resurrect my blog. Not surprisingly as each year passes I get a different view of ageing!

I was familiar with the comparison between women fighting for equality and older people fighting to be heard, but it took the ‘Me too’ movement, and the continuing pay gap between men and women, to make me realise that women have really made little progress in what is now well over 100 years. Will older people still be fighting to be heard in well over 100 years time? Can we afford either situation?

A few weeks ago I got an invitation to an international conference on ageing being held in a few weeks time. The two ladies advertising it seemed to have plenty of qualifications but obviously lacked any experience of ageing themselves. 100 years ago we had conferences on women’s issues organised by men, the speakers were men and most of the audience were men with a few token women invited. The parallel today is with conferences on ageing run by younger people, with young speakers and young audiences and a few younger older people who are still physically able to attend.

The inefficiency of both systems is obvious but it is largely the women who are capable of being heard and who can therefore change their situation, even if slowly. As things stand at present we oldies don’t stand a chance of being heard.

I have to compensate for my comparative immobility by relying on webinars which I can watch from home but these have limited value, again because they are organised by younger people who have to base their knowledge on what they read, and who have limited contact with older people. About 20 to 30 years ago a couple of researchers into ageing in the UK applied for a grant from a charity, but were told they could only have it if they included some older people in the research team. They said afterwards it made a huge difference to the quality of the research, yet few other researchers seem to have realised how important this is. It’s the equivalent of men doing research into women’s issues, without involving women, which I assume would be laughed at today.

So where do we start? To me the obvious place is to raise the profile of older people and show that we still have a value in the community. When I started looking I found that there is plenty of material, and that I am not the only person aware of this need and willing to do something about it. One on-line magazine is already on board. In their latest edition they give the example of an elderly lady with dementia and a beautiful voice, and her carer, equally talented, who recorded a famous song from the past. It got to number 7 on the English charts. What a huge amount of pleasure that gave so many people across the world. Even with dementia we have a value.


































We all seem to be agreed that there have been huge advances made in world knowledge in the past 30+ years yet we tend not to take this, and its implications, any further. My oft expressed feeling is that much of the increase has bypassed many of our leaders on the world stage and they don’t recognise its how dangerous this is. For example, it is nearly 50 years since Trump went anywhere near a text-book, assuming he hasn’t done so since he did his undergraduate degree. Much of the knowledge revolution will have bypassed him and others in similar positions of influence and power.

An even bigger disadvantage of this ‘head in the sand’ attitude to learning is that much of the new knowledge will also bypass our young people in school unless we realise what is happening. We can’t continue with this ‘what was good enough for us is good enough for them’ attitude. We live in a world of new and progressive knowledge and it is dangerous to try to pretend it isn’t happening.

A few years ago we had a review of our education system in Australia and seemed to take the view that real change was largely too expensive so lets forget about it. Some of the changes will be implemented, such as new equipment, but much won’t be, particularly ideas which enable teachers to have a new attitude and provide an environment in which their creativity can be enabled. Far too much stress, and money, is currently directed at national testing which at best is severely limited. The current model includes labelling the neighbourhoods in which schools are located in terms of economic status! Thank goodness nobody labelled me at school. My life would have taken a very different path and would have been unlikely to include 5 degrees, with 3 higher degrees and a Ph.D!

School principals should be the knowledge leaders in their schools, which implies updating their qualifications, leaving the everyday running of the school to non-teachers. This would enable them to concentrate on bringing out the creativity in their teaching staff and providing an environment in which this could flourish. True and productive leadership.

A few weeks ago I attended an assembly at a local primary school. It was beautifully coordinated, with children involved as much as possible but on the teachers’ terms. The children sang well, standing tall and with their arms neatly tucked in beside them, a good reflection of 20th century discipline! A modern 21st century school would have had the children fully participating, letting their bodies express the music too. Ownership was well and truly in the hands of the staff.

To me full participation means that the children are really immersed in their learning, whether it be music, robotics, English or mathematics or any other subject, and it isn’t compartmentalised into what happens inside the often prisonlike school structures and the external learning which defines the world we live in. The two worlds would be complementary.

Schools seem to have changed little in the last 50 years, with only marginal improvements in class size and replacement of blackboards etc. The change we need is to recognise that our teachers are artists and should be given freedom to use their imaginations and be recognised as the backbone and strength of the system. This would help to marry what is taught and learned in schools to be applicable to the world outside. I suspect our failure rate, and drop out rate amongst the students, would decline and teachers would have more pride in their work and be less likely to drop out themselves. Real, up-to-date modern education.






























