Never Stop Learning. Twelve Starter Ideas.

By Karen and Erica

When we come into this world, we start learning. How to eat, how to yell, how to smile, what knees are for. Learning is a major, and formal, part of our first two decades.

Then, one day, we actually start to know a few things. Oh happy day.

And we get busy working and raising a family, and in those days learning is often associated mostly with those activities—for us, continuing legal education and becoming proficient at every possible chocolate chip cookie recipe. Not in that order.

Then we retire, our children launch, and we sit back and wonder what happened. How fast those decades passed. And we realize along the way that lots of new ideas are percolating, and we need to understand at least some of them better than we do. AI. Cryptocurrency. Anime. And now we have time. And we know learning will keep us sharp, so we want to get on with it.

Luckily, there are many ways to learn just about anything and everything.

• First, as we have remarked often, check out YouTube. When we can’t figure out why gmail is not working, or how to put on makeup, or whether we have what we need to make emergency pita bread, we call on the YouTube experts. If we are about to take a trip to Chicago and want to know what to do there, we check YouTube. If we want to know more about stars, we look at National Geograpic’s YouTube stories.

• And if we don’t need a video, we ask ChatGPT about things like who is Oasis, or what was the meaning of Queen Elizabeth’s brooches, or is the horrid spotted lanternfly being eliminated in the U.S? (Absolutely not.) (Obviously, discretion in the use of responses by any online platform is always a good idea.)

YouTube and ChatGPT are relatively intuitive as a use matter, but not always comprehensive. Other recent inventions are a little harder to understand, and we might want to take a course to get us up to speed.

• One of Lustre’s friends recently told us about Senior Planet. (We don’t use the word senior but everyone else does.) We wish we had found, eight years ago, an online tutorial to allow us to launch our website, but here it is in case you want to. Now, we are intrigued about learning more about AI, as are many people in our cohort. Senior Planet is a part of OATS—Older Adults Technology Services, an advocacy platform that addresses the same issues Lustre does, in a different context.

After working with seniors and technology for fifteen years, we have developed some distinct ideas about what’s wrong with how we do “aging” today.  Ours is not a universal point of view, and there are many worthy organizations helping seniors today who bring very different approaches to diagnosing this problem.  But as with all meaningful work, ours begins with a particular vantage point. One that is rooted in grassroots activism, an optimism about social change, and a faith in the potential of older people. It’s a vantage point born from tens of thousands of hours of working side-by-side with seniors determined to learn, to grow, and to change themselves and the world around them.  

What a splendid idea!

Of course, there are lots of things to learn other than tech and AI. And there are lots of places where people like us can learn them, on line or in person. We know the most about New York City’s institutions, but similar institutions with similar offerings exist in most places. Start with your local public library or museum or college.

• In New York, you can learn Latin at the NY Public Library. At the 92nd Street Y, one of New York City’s amazing resources, with a truly vast set of options, you can take classes in anything from acrylic painting to zumba fitness dancing. The Cooper Union, another fine NYC institution, just announced that older people can take classes for free in the areas of fine arts, graphic arts, illustration, typography, creative coding, and information design.

• Many colleges and universities allow older people to register for free, or for greatly reduced tuition. Here and here are lists of such institutions in all fifty states. You may not in all cases be able to get a degree, but if your focus is learning that should not stop you. And many institutions offer courses online and in person through extension platforms, like that of Harvard University.

There are other ways of learning, too.

• Travel is one. Road Scholar not only has trips, but also offers online lectures. Educational cruises are another option.

• Museums offer many cultural classes. Here’s a New York list.

• Public gardens often include horticultural courses, like the ones at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

• Van Cleef & Arpels has an actual school, online and in person (If you happen to be in Paris) where you can learn about the art of high jewelry.

• The World Health Organization has a course on healthy aging.

• Sotheby’s has courses in various aspects of art, online, and in person in London and New York.

• Masterclass has stellar teachers in many many categories, like cooking and acting.

There are millions of other opportunities. You are sure to find something fascinating. And please let everyone know in the comments about the opportunities in your community. Lustre has members everywhere.

When we were younger, education might have been lost on us. We’re ready now!