"Live well. Learn forever," with OLLI

Entrance to the University of North Florida's

Continuting Education Department

   
  At 117 colleges and universities across America, the retired, over 50 crowd is going back to school.  Almost every state has a least one OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) program and some have more than one.  Older adults have opportunities for personal growth and the joy of learning through the many classes OLLI offers. 
    I attend classes at Jacksonville's University of North Florida OLLI center which is part of the Continuing Education Department.  Membership is $45. per year plus a fee ranging from $20-$70 per class.  All instructors are volunteers and experts in the subjects of their classes.  Class offerings are greatly diverse.  A few of the 67 subjects offered are French Cooking, Chinese Mah Jong, Stock Market Fundamentals, Woodcarving, Football Strategy, Sex and War, Metropolitan Opera lectures, Wine Basics.  See the UNF OLLI web site for the complete schedule.
      This semester, I'm taking Mysteries Unlimited: International and Metropolitan Opera Lectures.  Classes meet once every other week for two hours.  I am also teaching a class, Making Basic Bead Jewelry.  I enjoy taking classes and teaching.  
      In my class, Mysteries Unlimited:  International, at home we read an assigned mystery book with an international setting and discuss it in class.  The really big advantage is the wide range of knowledge, travel experience, language expertise and perceptive ideas the members of the class bring to the discussion.  
      Metropolitan Opera Lectures is just that a lecture plus much information about an opera a video and/or cd of key scenes from the opera.  One of the best parts of this class is that after each lecture the class meets at one of three local movie theaters to see a live HD performance broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in NYC.  The first week we watched "Anna Bolena" with the fabulous 
Anna Netrebko as Anna Bolena.  This was the most spectacular and moving performance I've ever seen.  It is the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.  It was dramatic and tragic with fabulous costumes and faux jewelry.  
     Anna Netrebko is the diva of the Met this year.  She is beautiful and a great actress.  She doesn't just stand and sing.  She acts.  Whether you like opera or not, you'd have to admire her performance.  As I watched the opera, I thought it was so cool that at that very moment in New York the opera action was happening live, like a "Saturday Night Live" at the opera.
     See the website of OLLI's National Resource Center at the University of Southern Maine.
This is not a governance body, but an information center.  You can also do a word search to find links to colleges with OLLI programs. You don't have to be part of a class to see the live
Met operas.  On the day of the opera, for example, three theaters here in Jacksonville show it live.  See the Met HD schedule and info.  I saw "Anna Bolena" at Tinseltown and the theater
was packed.  Other theaters showing the HD in Jacksonville are the Regency Theater and the Avenues Cinema 20 on Phillips Highway.

Season Calendar picturing Anna Netrebko as Anna Bolena.

Anna Netrebko as Manon, which will

be performed in April 2012

Deck at the UNF Continuing Education Center 

overlooking a pond with alligators, turtles and brave ducks.

  

School bells are ringing, but not for me

     I've been retired from teaching more years than I want to admit, but I still feel nostalgic in mid-August when school starts.  I do realize that If I went back, I'd last about a half day before wanting to return to my retired status, but the call of the school bell after you've answered it so many years, is a call that's hard to ignore.
       So, Monday when the school busses delay traffic and children and teens amble down the sidewalks, I'll be watching out the window as I drink my coffee.  The first day is always exciting.  Students and teachers generally are on their best behavior.  The day is a promise of hope and potential.  I have many memories, positive and negative of my teaching days.  All students are worthy, but some classes and students take the spotlight in my memory.
      I'd have to say my teaching philosophy was involvement creates enthusiam; enthusiasm promotes learning.   The classes I enjoyed most were those that had students creating something tangible.  I was the journalism teacher and newspaper sponsor for many years.  It made me happy that students came in to work on the paper during their lunch periods, study halls, and during other classes when they could persuade another teacher to let them out.  Sometimes we worked until 9:30 pm to meet a printer's deadline.  I always resisted interfering too much.  They liked being responsible and were both proud and critical of each paper.  My role was to settle arguments, offer  suggestions, keep them on task and  serve as personal counselor for their many teen-age problems.  
    I taught a film literature class for several years.  We studied film history and techniques.
Students were placed in small groups to make their own films.  Then we invited other classes to come in to view them.  I loved the creativity of the student films. This was back in the day of super 8 cameras with no sound.  Students recorded music to match their plot to play on a reel-to-reel tape, later on cassetts as the film was projected.  Often their films acted out the words of the songs.  We were MTV before it was on tv. 
     One film I remember well was attempting to imitate Rudolph Valentino's "Son of the Shiek," that we had watched in class.  The group went into the sand dunes that were then behind Regency Square.  For the opening scene, five students came riding down a dune on their broomstick horses. Then a close up showed their film title written in the sand.  I loved it and still do.  
     Involvement can take many forms.  Filming and creating a newspaper are physical forms.  Participation was easy in media classes, but getting seniors involved in reading British literature and writing essays always challenged my creativity.  I didn't always succeed in involving them, but I did with enough students, often enough to feel that it was all worth while.
     No career could have required my own total involvement as much as teaching.  

Graduation--A family affair with photos

      I had not planned to write another blog entry about high school graduation, but after attending my grandson's, I can't help myself.  Graduation is so hopeful and so happy.  Whether the graduate just squeaked by or was cum laude, the family is happy and proud.  A certain bitter-sweetness is present also.  High school is the end of childhood and the beginning of a new life whether work or college and many graduates will leave their parents' home.
     After Thomas's graduation much photo and video taking commemorated the event.  I saw graduates posing with parents, then with grandparents, then with siblings.  Everyone wants to be in a photo of  such a life changing occasion.  Years from now, children of the graduates will look at the photos and marvel at their parents' youth and haircuts. 
      After the ceremony my daughter and son-in-law had a luncheon for Thomas.  Later in the weekend, they had a party for him and the neighborhood graduates.  They were all well-celebrated.  As grandma, I was so happy to be a part of it all.  Thomas will attend college in the fall.  Right now he is more anxious than excited about that, but life moves on.
    Here are a few photos from the happy weekend:

Thomas blends in, but we know he is on the left side, fourth row, fourth seat. 

Thomas with his very handsome family

Thomas gets a graduation kiss from his mom.  This photo says so much

about the event.  Graduation represents much frustration, work, but much love

on the part of family.

The graduation cake!

Of Graduation and things

                                                                  2010 graduation of my grand niece.


          This week I'm traveling to my oldest grandson's high school graduation.  He has been nervously anticipating it for months.  His life is about to change from all that is familiar to the unknown.  He will go to college in the fall, but while that is exciting, it is the really big Unknown.  His parents, his brother and sister are full of advice, but these days he's not listening much.
       In some cultures, teens on the brink of life participate in some sort of coming-of-age ceremony.  High school graduation is the closest we have to that.  Some religious groups do have formal events to commemorate growing up, but most teens are pretty much on their own.  Teachers and family expect them to act mature and grown-up, but the teens themselves sometimes are not so sure what that means.  Some try to act out what they think is grown-up and imitate behavior they see on tv or movies.  Maybe we should have a rule book.  This is what a grown-up does, but can't you see every adult putting in a different view.
       My grandfather attended the graduation of all his grandchildren and most of the greatgrands.  He rode 400 miles on a Greyhound bus to attend my college graduation.  I've never forgotten his family devotion and he influenced me to get to the graduations of my nieces and grandnieces.  Now,  my grandchildren are starting to graduate.  Did someone say life is short.  I'm really hearing "time's winged chariot drawing near."
       Congratulations, Thomas and all graduates!  I'll try not to cry when I see you in your gown and hear
"Pomp and Circumstance."  Be warned though. Usually, I tear up at the first notes.  

My Life as a School Teacher

                      Recent luncheon with other Sandalwood retirees.  I'm at lower left
                               of photo.  

     With all the talk these days about school teachers, their unions, their evaluation, their worth, I've summed up my years of teaching.  It was the most satisfying and the most frustrating career I could have chosen.  

      In college, I did not set out to be a school teacher, I wanted to be a journalist.  After my sophomore year, I enrolled in the College of Journalism, but before my junior year started, I had to transfer to education.  I had no money to continue and the state of Florida was offering scholarships to those who would go into education.  I took the test and got a scholarship. 

       I cried all the way to the post office when I mailed my acceptance of the scholarship, but I wanted to stay in school more than I wanted to be a journalist.  The move turned out to be the best for me.  I was not assertive enough to be a newspaper reporter.  I know that now, but didn’t know it then. 

      A teacher’s life and schedule was great for a mom, and being a mother was the most important thing to me.  I stayed in teaching for 34 years taking only two years off in 36 years.  I stayed out the year my daughter was born.  In those days, you were not allowed to teach once your pregnancy became obvious.  I took another year off to get my Masters in Education from Florida State University.  By this time, my daughter was four and I was divorced.  The two of us lived in Tallahassee for a year.  I had a NDEA Fellowship which paid all our expenses for living and for schooling. Those were the good old days of government support for teachers and education. 

       Through the 34 years, I taught in four different schools: two junior high and one senior high.  I taught English 9, 10—Seabreeze Senior High, Daytona Beach, FL;  English 9 and yearbook sponsor—Seabreeze Junior High

English 7, 9, journalism, newspaper sponsor—Stilwell Junior High School, Jacksonville, FL

English 9, Newspaper sponsor, English Dept. Chairman—

Highlands Junior High, Jacksonville, FL

 English 10, 11, 12, journalism, newspaper sponsor, mass media, film literature—Sandalwood High School, Jacksonville, FL

      I stayed at Sandalwood for 26 years where I enjoyed teaching film literature and English 12 more than the other subjects, and I had a love/hate relationship with being newspaper sponsor, which I did off and on for 12 years at Sandalwood and three years at junior high schools.

     Ironically, the best relationships with students and the most fun was working with the newspaper staffs. Frustrations were no money allocation for newspaper.  We had to pay our own printing and other costs.  Another frustration was lack of administrative support for student ideas and creativity.  After almost every issue I would be called into the principal’s office to explain some story that was true, but did not show the school in the best light.  My staff always struggled to break the limits.    Some principals were worse than others in calling us to explain.  
      Education and students were changing and not necessarily for the better when I decided to call it a career, but I'm happy to report my daughter has taken up the
mantle.  She started out as a journalist and ended up as English teacher.  As she says, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

No art, no music, no drama

      
 Recently, on NPR's  Diane Rehm Show, I heard an interview with the playwright Edward Albee ( "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,").  At one point, he was asked to give an opinion about the elimination of the arts in many schools as a money saving ploy.  He said that without a study of the arts, we will become a nation of educated barbarians.  I'm paraphrasing here since I was driving and could not write his exact words.
He regretted that schools concentrate on teaching money making skills at the expense of the arts. 
         In November, Florida elected Rick Scott, a conservative Republican, as governor.  His slash and burn state budget, makes deep, deep cuts into education while corporations will receive monetary benefits.  In Duval County, where I live, many options are up for vote by the school board to find school programs to cut.  Those up for consideration are no athletic programs, including Friday night football;  a four day school week;  no after school activities or transportation for them;  teacher furloughs;  and, of course, the arts programs.  It looks like
Florida will become a state of barbarians.

      As a former teacher, I know that sports keep some students from dropping out as well as providing college scholarship opportunities.  As for the arts, they make us human and humane.  Visual art such as drawing and painting show the world from many perspectives and make students more empathetic.  Learning to play music and play it with others, gives those who play a sense of accomplishment and unity.  Drama teaches so much on so many levels:  patience, confidence, taking directions, understanding and empathy with human nature.  
      Loss of any of the arts is a huge loss and diminishes us all.