Adults as Learners - Interview

Interview with an Artist

Audrey has been dancing for over eighty years and painting for at least seventy.  She is 86 and doesn't look a day over… well, you get the picture.  Audrey and my mom sing in a Senior Chorus together and are best friends.  

My mom and Audrey    

I scheduled an interview with Audrey at her house to talk about her learning projects over the past twelve months. Upon arrival, I was shown around her two bedroom apartment which was drenched in color and texture.  Everywhere you looked there were pieces of Audrey's work and representations of her life.  We settled in the living room amidst her paintings.

Living room.  Painting of her daughter.

Using Allen Tough's interviewing protocol (1971), I began the interview with some demographical information.  Audrey lives in the suburbs of Syracuse, NY.  She is white, and would be considered middle-class (although she is on a small fixed-income).  Audrey lives alone in a small apartment.  She is 86 and currently unmarried (she has been divorced once and widowed once).  She has three daughters.  Two daughters are not financially stable and a source of Audrey's stress.  The third daughter lives close by and helps her mother out.  Audrey has no grandchildren.  She trained as a secretary and worked in that capacity until she retired in her late fifties.  She has had training in the arts in both group-planned and one-to-one learning settings.  Along with, and after retiring from, her "day job" Audrey ran a gallery/boutique for many years out of her house.  She sold the house seven years ago.  She is an active painter, dancer, and singer.

Audrey has no interest in taking a "formal" class or learning a "new" skill.  She feels that her time is too limited and expenses are tight.  She states that "older people try to do too much and then get overwhelmed and back out".  Audrey does not want to put herself in that situation.  Audrey feels she is already involved in learning new things in the arts (as she discusses later in the interview).  She has no interest in learning any of the subjects from the list I provided (found in the EDG-666 syllabus workbook) because she either hires others or asks her daughter.

Learning Projects (past 12 months)

After reading through the questions and prompting her to include all, any, any other, efforts to learn over the past 12 months, Audrey came up with only three.  Following the protocol, I asked again using the prompts of learning "from" medical, financial, resources like books, media, television, other people, and she had nothing to add.  I then gave her "sheet one" that included a list of things people learn about.  She maintained the three she listed before.  Therefore, we continued with:

1.  Line Dancing

2.  Time and Memory Management

3.  Technology

Line Dancing

The learning project is learning how to line dance.  The activity is group-planned and led by an instructor.  Audrey attends the class once a week for 90 minutes.  She claims that it took only the first class to learn the steps, but each week she needs reminding, so the learning is active and ongoing.  The reason for this project is that Audrey wanted something social to do with other seniors who shared her love of dance and music.  Audrey is a tap dancer and this year she decided to challenge herself by trying something different.  She signed up at the local Senior Center, where she takes exercise classes, to take Line Dancing.  It is convenient because she is familiar with the center and it is close to her home.  She was surprised to learn that it was not as easy as she thought it would be to "get the hang of it".  The director of the learning is a 65 year-old woman who is a professional dancer.  The source is a group activity that is both social as well as physical.  Audrey enjoys physical exercise.  This is not self-directed, and it achieves both personal (social) and professional (new dancing skills) learning outcomes.

Learning Transfer

Audrey has remained physically active through the years which has helped her in the aging process.  She has no outward signs of hearing or sight decline, and has not gained weight with age.  In fact, Audrey appears to have excellent balance and does not complain of aches and pains in her joints.  She does mention that her body is "slowing down" and that her back can bother her on occasion.  She complains of osteoporosis which affects 20% of women over 50 and half of all women over 80 (Bjorklund, 2008).  According to Bjorklund (2008), exercise reduces some of the aging side-effects.  Physically, Audrey is in pretty good shape!

Time and Memory Management

Project for Art Show - in progress

The learning project is to develop techniques to improve memory and concentration.  The activity is self-planned.  It is difficult to determine the number of hours it takes for this activity because it is intermittent all day long.  It is active and ongoing.  The reason for this project is that Audrey noticed she was "forgetting things" and she was having trouble concentrating.  She would forget why she was going somewhere, and sometimes where she was supposed to be going.  She would also find it hard to complete or even start projects because other things would distract her.  This began about six months ago when she began preparing for an art show.  She had agreed to the show nine months ago, but didn't begin working on it until summer because in the past, it never took that long to paint a few paintings.  As time drew closer to "showtime", she found herself becoming overwhelmed and couldn't get to the point where she actually started to paint.  Likewise, she would be so distracted by "life" she would forget where she was going, or when she got "there" she would forget why she was there in the first place.  Audrey shared her concerns with her doctor and her family without much resolution.  She (they?) chalked it up to "old age" and decided to take action herself.  This learning project is self directed.  The source  of this project is advice from her doctor, daughter, t.v. talk shows, and friends.  She makes lists, plans her day, and lowers her expectations so as not to become overwhelmed.  For example, she decided to use older artwork and some of her daughter's photographs with only a couple of new paintings for this show.  This project meets both personal (reducing stress)and professional (art show) learning outcomes.

Learning Transfer
Audrey is on the right track with making lists and using external aids, according to Bjorklund (2008).  From the interview, it sounds like her prospective memory is affected by her trying to do too much.  Prospective memory is remembering to do something later on (Bjorklund, 2008).  In Audrey's case, remembering why she needed to go to a store once she arrived there.  Lists will help with this natural deficit.

In addition to her memory concerns, Audrey had some time management adjustments to make.  She must make choices and problem solve as we all do.  As we age, the management of time becomes more complex as we add more things to manage into the routine.  In Audrey's case, her life becomes unmanageable when she added the preparation of an art show into her already busy schedule of exercise, dance, singing, helping her daughters, managing her finances, and managing her healthcare.  Her perceived cognitive decline may well be due to simply having too much on her mind (Bjorklund, 2008).

Technology

Audrey's computer.
Photograph above it by her daughter.

The learning project is how to navigate a personal computer; specifically email and picture retrieval.  The activity is one to one learning.  Audrey spends about one hour per day on the computer mostly when her daughter is by her side or on the phone assisting her.  It is not usually a planned event but one of a plea for help.   The project is active and ongoing.  The reason for this project is that Audrey needs to communicate via email with other artists or customers in order to fulfill professional commitments.  Some of the communication comes by way of photos she is commissioned to paint.  Likewise, other technology such as t.v., dvd player, and phone have her flummoxed much of the time.  The director of this project  is Audrey's daughter.  Audrey feels it should be "self-directed" but she admits that it is not.  In fact she'd like to forget all about it but technology is "everywhere".  The source of the project is hands-on learning with the computer, phone, and tv/dvd remote control devices. This project meets both personal (acquiring knowledge) and professional (communicating effectively) learning outcomes.

Learning Transfer
Learning new things is difficult for Audrey at 86.  Although Bjorklund (2008) maintains that it is more often a perceived cognitive decline than real, age is a factor in working memory (performing operations on information held "in mind").  There are many tools to assist the senior in using the computer such as large screen print and websites (Bjorklund, 2008).  

Final Thoughts
I asked about her level of confidence in her ability to learn these projects.  Overall, Audrey feels confident in her ability to learn.  She has a high level of confidence in the areas she is most comfortable with such as her dancing (an example of procedural memory), and a low level of confidence in her ability to learn new things such as technology (an example of working memory).  She is concerned, and therefore determined, to learn about her memory issues.  Audrey shares that as she ages, and her mental and physical abilities weaken, she feels less confident in learning new things (an example of perceived cognitive decline).  She fears that her memory issues will continue to worsen.  She claims to put a lot of pressure on herself to perform the same as she always used to.  She shares that "older people feel left out" and "younger people make you feel like you don't contribute".  She has seen this happen to other seniors and she tries hard to keep up so that it doesn't happen to her.  Her overall feeling of wellbeing is high.  She loves life, stays active, and enjoys her friends and family (and her cat who we never see throughout the course of this interview).

Resources:

Bjorklund, B.R. (2008/2004).  The Journey of Adulthood (7th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., Prentice hall.

Tough A. M. (1971).  The adult's learning projects (2nd ed.).  Austin, Texas:  Learning Concepts.  Retrieved from http://ieti.org/tough/books/alp.htm