BLOG #10:
Winter Solstice and Life-long Learning
December 21, 2018, marks six months since I left full-time
employment.
This year, December 21 also marks the winter solstice.
The winter solstice and life-long learning don’t have any
direct links to retirement. However, I find that now that my intellectual
and physical energy aren’t tied up with paid work projects, I do have the energy
to reflect on and chew on seemingly unrelated things and find surprising links.
WINTER
SOLSTICE
Like all major life events, the six months since I left SAIT
seem to have dragged themselves along while at the same time they have passed
in the blink of an eye. I’m not sure how that happens. Scientists of various
sorts will tell me that while what I feel is real, time doesn’t work that
way. (Dr. Who might say differently, of course.) All I know is that time has the
ability to drag and zip by all at the same time.
When I was working, I found the time between October and
February to be a real drag. This had nothing to do with the events embedded in
the academic calendar and everything to do with the planet’s position in the
heavens and its access to the sun. I was up at 05:30 (in the dark), leaving the
house at 06:45 (in the dark), arriving at work around 07:15 (in the
dark), and heading home any time after 17:30-ish (yes, in the dark). I was
fortunate to have an office with a window so I did at least know that there was
daylight. This year, of course, is different. I don’t have to get up at 05:30
.
. . I can roll over and get up at a more civilized hour, and the things
normally relegated to the weekends can now be accomplished in regular daylight
hours so somehow, when 05:30 or 17:30 rolls around, I don’t feel quite so
hemmed in.
And I have to wonder if my increased outdoor time is
contributing to increased production of vitamin D and that in turn is a
contributing factor to my feeling so much better.
In my casual conversations with other retirees, one of the
big benefits of retirement I hear over and over again is the benefit of being
able to get up and get moving when one wants to.
LIFE-LONG
LEARNING
The other day I was listening to Rosanna Deerchild’s CBE
radio program Unreserved: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved.
If you are not normally a listener, it’s worth considering adding this radio
program to your usual listening. As I now spend a lot of time in the car to and
from the barn, the radio has become my new best friend.
I love Ms. Deerchild’s approach to her program (about
Indigenous life in Canada). The most recent program I listened to was about
Indigenous folks learning their own languages again. Look for the CBC podcast
called First Words: https://podcast-a.akamaihd.net/mp3/podcasts/unreserved-xqVQWqQm-20181219.mp3.
Canadians don’t need to be reminded that the residential
school system and the sixties scope did their best to eradicate Indigenous languages
in an effort to make Indigenous children more “Canadian.” So it takes courage
and grit and determination to reclaim the right to language, to
learn it, and to own it.
If learning one’s original language isn’t an example of life-long
learning then I don’t know what is.
This particular episode of Unreserved got me thinking
about the nature of learning and, as always happens when one opens one’s
mind to things, other examples and other questions pop up and demand to be
addressed.
I’ve always been fascinated by the process of learning: why
people learn, how they learn, how educators can help people learn. Undoubtedly
this is why I made my way through my working life as a teacher and as a
curriculum specialist. What I became more and more interested in, though, is
why some folks are unable or unwilling to learn. There could have been a PhD
thesis in that topic at some time in my past working life. Nevertheless, any
conversation I have with myself about the process of learning has to include
not only how to facilitate learning but why learning is so difficult for some
folks.
And, . . . it’s not just the human species that has the
capacity to learn or the struggle to learn.
We currently have (yet again) a rescue kitten who had a
rough start to life and who is having to learn some of the social graces
required to happily live with humans and other domestic kitties. The kitten, a
lovely orange-on-orange stripped kitty, is like the class clown . . . teachers
will recognize this kid . . . the one always doing something (generally good
naturedly) to wiggle out of some situation he finds difficult or boring. That’s
our Cheddar. Our other cats have taken it upon themselves to teach Cheddar how
to behave as a cat. Supported by our household’s humans, Cheddar is slowly
becoming a civilized critter and realizing that life is actually pretty good as
a well-behaved critter.
If that’s not life-long learning then I don’t know what is.
Houseguest Leonard working on Cheddar's manners
My horse, Hasty, is going to be 25 in the spring.
Twenty-five years old is getting up there in horse years. Hasty’s always
been a very reactive horse: quick to spot potential danger, quick to worry
about pretty much everything, quick to react when the pressure was more than he
could cope with. Teaching Hasty that not everything in his world was a threat
and that his rider could be relied upon to do her part to keep us safe has been
a slow process over many years. As a result, I would never, ever have thought
that Hasty would have become a “school” horse.
Now school masters (and dude
ranch horses) are worth their weight in gold. Ask any riding school owner/trainer or parent trusting their small child to a large equid. School horses
tend not to be reactive, they tend to look out for their riders, they tend not
commit to any action unless they are absolutely convinced that that’s what
their rider/driver meant, and they tend to have the capacity to switch off and
let the world flow around them. None of this is Hasty. Being a school horse
would be very stressful for Hasty.
Nevertheless, in David’s ongoing education
as a horse owner, taking lessons on Hasty is teaching David about whispered
aids. Riding a light and responsive horse was the next logical move. My
teacher’s heart sang with joy as I watched horse and hubby figure out how to
become a team, watched David learn how to work with a reactive horse, and
watched Hasty learn that he could trust David as his new and occasional rider.
It’s worth mentioning that while I am a horse woman of some 60 years, David
(who has been involved in my horsey “doings” all our lives together as a
couple) is not at all horsey. So you can imagine my surprise when, at the
tender age of 58 he took up riding and at the tender age of 61 he decided to
buy himself a horse!
If that’s not life-long learning then I don’t know what is.
David’s horse, Bear, is an Icelandic gelding who is (rather
like Cheddar) the class clown. He can and does find ways to wiggle out of
lessons that are difficult or boring, but he is by nature the right temperament
to be a school horse. As Bear’s only 9 years old he’s at the middle of his
educational journey as a riding horse. Which is--naturally--why I decided it
was time he started his journey as a driving horse! In part, the decision to
start Bear out ground driving was due to the recent death of my friend’s
beloved horse, Skuggi, and the arrival of her new horse, Freyr . . . and Freyr
is both a riding and a driving horse who can work in harness solo or as a pair.
So, Bear needed to catch up with his new buddy. Bear at
least was starting from scratch, had no bad habits to overcome, and is a quick
study and willing pupil. Unfortunately, I wasn’t starting from scratch and so I
do have a lot of bad habits to overcome. Although I’ve driven (see blog
#9) and although Hasty is an experienced ground driving horse, with trainer
Shannon, I’m learning a whole new (and better) approach to starting a horse at
ground driving. There’ve been a few blips along the way, but Bear truly has
been a star pupil (and his human is catching up).
And if Bear’s entry into the world of being a driving horse,
and if my entry into a different way of approaching this learning aren’t
examples of life-long learning, . . . then I don’t know what is.
For about the last ten years, I’ve been accompanying David
to Calgary Flames home hockey games. Now, David’s a bred-and-born Canadian who
grew up playing hockey so his knowledge of the game is seeded in his DNA. Not
so me.
Despite going to games for some ten years, I still haven’t a clue what’s
going on.
For me, watching the crowd’s behaviour is the most interesting part
of the game. I have long suspected that my lack of knowledge about the game is
seriously pinching my enjoyment of the whole experience. I also suspect that I
can no longer pull the “I’m an immigrant so what do I know about hockey” card,
so I’ve set myself a goal to learn more about the game’s rules.
This is not a
New Year’s Resolution (which have a life expectancy of about a nano second with
me). This is life-long learning at its best (I hope).
MISCELLANEOUS
After a rocky and stressful start to retirement, I’m starting to believe
that there may be a lot of good things about this retirement business.
Mention the word “retirement” on Facebook and I can
guarantee that you will get all sorts of adverts that are more-or-less related
to retirement. As I am in the process of wrestling various corners of my home
back into submission, and as I am weeding out a lot of “stuff,” this particular
link seems very relevant right now: 30 things every retiree should get rid
of (by Jason Notte):
I’m currently re-reading one of Dan Brown’s books (Deception
Point). It’s a high-action, fast-moving book with lots of life-threatening
things happening to the protagonists, and there are some seriously mean bad guys.
Fortunately, the protagonists never need the bathroom! (See earlier blogs and
references to penis envy.) So, I got to thinking that if I should ever write
the great Canadian novel, it’d have to have a protagonist who was dealing with
a minor bladder infection and all her actions would have to revolve around
finding an indoor loo . . . which got me wondering whether or not I should
seriously consider signing up for Margaret Atwood’s masterclass on creative
writing!
Happy Winter Solstice. I, for one, look forward to the
return of daylight (more riding and more gardening).
Cheers, Chris 😊
