Category Archives: Document

Aging America: seven myths

Source : MacArthur foundation research network on an aging society

The dramatic increase in life expectancy in the United States and
all other developed nations in the 20th century is one of the greatest
cultural and scientific advances in our history. Yet, we are woefully
unprepared to address the challenges—such as potential conflicts
aggravated by generational differences—and take advantage of the
opportunities—unleashing the productivity inherent in a healthy
elderly population, for example—that stand before us.

Seven myths
  1. Aging in America is a temporary phenomenon
    caused by the baby boom.
  2. Physical and mental capacity inevitably decline
    with biological aging.
  3. Aging mainly impacts the elderly.
  4. In an aging society, the young and old are
    inevitably pitted against each other.
  5. Policymakersmust choose between investments
    in youth or the elderly.
  6. The biggest public problems facing an aging
    America stemfromSocial Security andMedicare/Medicaid.
  7.  We can stabilize the age of our population by
    increasing immigration.

Full version: https://www.macfound.org/media/files/AGING-CONTEXTS-FACTFICTION.PDF

Call to contribution “Aging well a long time”

Retirement and long ageing, third stage of life  !

« To get ready for» it is to undertake a precondition, to implement reflexion and actions ahead of a plan.

The awarness of the lengthening of life expectancy beyond 60 years – a worldwide average of more than 6 years between 1990 and 2014 – coincide roughly with the entrance in the XXIth century.

The number of more than 60 years old persons could augment of about 60 % on the horizon 2030 and about 75 % for more than 80 years. Source French national institute of statistics and economic studies.

Few of us approach idea that a «urgent common job» must be undertaken in such revolution which reappraises the foundations of the organisation of the worldwide society.

No more state, no region, no family can envisage tomorrow without taking into account that we are always more numerous and older in a coexistence of interbreedinge social, economic, cultural of four, or even five generations, among which two, or even three are in situation of retirement and of long ageing in said developed countries, and for others than it is there so as soon as possible.

And yet all know that one of the necessary priorities for life in society, it is «education-training in a permanent learning» base of elements from relations to the others, of human dignity by exercise of an including, learnt, chosen responsibility and undertaken with pleasure for a personal and collective growth who allows recognition.

To take back a writings of founder of ATD Quarter World Joseph Wresinski: «Charity drives the poor people in indignity». 20 years of retirement allow us to write today: «the absence of life horizon prepares the future pensioners and old in destitution – lack of useful things for life.»

These things possible be desire, happiness, pleasure of the personal and collective growth by remaining responsible, autonomous in his choices of mode, condition and environment, in expression of its rights and duties, in sharing and collaboration between generations across the world.

We know that uselessness feeling is the worst of troubles, harder with progress in age.

To get ready it is therefore to undertake a time of learning, if possible before the end of career, to visit again its knowledge, to correct its ignorance, to construct the necessary and essentiel tools to learn, to understand and to undertake next decades by the sharing of knowledges and experiments as longer as possible.

Transmit (trans mittere «desposited beyond») to give in, to pass… is not any more enough facing the speeds of the applications of scientific and technical progress.

It is to accompany (walk with a companion) in solidarity and autonomisation that it is necessary to develop to make that this third stage of retirement and long ageing, is a long time of peace, of sharing in reciprocity, for the pleasure of life.

To get ready it is to get involved as elder responsible in an ethical and deontological behaviour of human values..

Do you want to join us in this plan of «reflexion and actions» which should end by a MOOC – Massive Open Online Cours e– who could have as title «to get ready for a long time of retirement and of ageing»  ?

The project group “Aging well a long time“, under the supervision of Pierre Caro, gave a deadline to introduce this plan: June, 2018?
You can address your proposals in:
contensor@gmail.com

Long ageing and oeconomy!

Pierre Calame, in his work Essay on Oeconomie(1), asks the question: “How in the context of globalization, humanity can it reconcile the economic needs, with the fact impossible to circumvent that the natural resources are limited
He writes: “the oeconomy is a branch of the governance. It has the aim of creating institutional actors and fittings, processes and rules, aiming at organizing the production, the distribution and the use of the goods and the services in order to ensure humanity all the possible wellness by benefitting the best from technical capabilities and from the human creativity, to ensure an enrichment and safeguarding constant worry of the biosphere, of conservation of the interests, rights and capacities of initiatives of the future generations under conditions of responsibility and equity causing adhesion of all….The democracy is not a political regime, it is the shared feeling which each one lays out of a certain catch on the collective destiny
Twenty years of retirement brought the confirmation of two realities to us: we need the adhesion of all, without what there will be no more requirement fault of present; each one has a certain catch on the collective destiny.
Today, in the world, a person on seven with more than 60 years, this can-being one on five in 2050, is more than 2 billion, and it is tomorrow!
We understood that the danger was not in ageing, normal function, but in the lack of desire, pleasure of good food this last third of life, 30.40 years possible, after the career.
We decided to undertake an action/deliberation on why and it how the elder ones, in an ethical and responsible control, could take part in the knowledge and the control of a company where best passes before more, where the desire and the pleasure of living are a project.
We built our own answer: to continue to learn how to undertake our work of pensioner, just like our career, in the capacity as known and recognized professional, responsible and possible pilot for young people but also for those and those wishing to share a community of reflections and actions on the happy consequences and less than one long time of ageing.
To return to the etymological direction “oikos” the hearth, the house common and “nomos” the law, in material and immaterial exchanges of the human beings between them, the companies between them, and humanity with the biosphere, here is an objective of new career, or started from this long ageing.
We know that the first act is a time of training.
This is why we have the plan of a “School of the 3rd chance reprocesses and long ageing”
Join us, we need you, whatever your age, your formation, profession, social situation, economic, religious, or territorial. We remain at your disposal

Pierre Caro
reprocessed professional, enquiring autodidact: retirement and long ageing.
A6 Association

(1) CALAME, Pierre, Essay on Oeconomy,  Paris(France): Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer, 2009

Five Steps To Developing A Lifelong Habit Of Learning

“The simple truth is that the most successful people are dedicated to constantly learning. They recognize that they always need to be growing, always need to be deepening their knowledge, always need to have a more thorough understanding of themselves and the world.” Lisa Link

https://www.cornerstone.edu/blogs/lifelong-learning-matters/post/5-steps-to-developing-a-lifelong-habit-of-learning

  1. Determine what you really want to know.
  2. Set goals in line with your objectives.
  3. Use a multitude of mediums to help you learn.
  4. Put learning into your schedule.
  5. Surround yourself with passionate learners.
Age is No Barrier to Learning

Whether 22 right out of undergrad graduation or 72 looking to finally accomplish that bachelor’s degree, PGS programs can help you be a lifelong learner.

Recognizing Green Skills in Non-formal Learning Settings

UIL, September, 6 2016

‘Green skills’ have emerged as a response to global sustainable development challenges linked to environmental protection, economic development and social inclusion. As a result, many countries are involved in fostering their citizens’ and workers’ ‘green skills’.  There is need to develop policies that offer clear directions on how to provide recognition, validation and accreditation (RVA) of these ‘skills’, including those acquired in formal and informal economic sectors.

The publication of the study “the development of a model for the effective inclusion of green skills in accredited competences”  is scheduled to be launched at the fifth World Forum for Lifelong Learning, St. Petersburg 25 May 2017.

http://www.uil.unesco.org/lifelong-learning/recognition-validation-and-accreditation/recognizing-green-skills-non-formal

‘Brainstorming’ or ‘brain disturbing’ with conformity pressure?

From Alfonso Lizarzaburu

Find below the links to have access to the results of some experimental evaluations of a “widely used technique” –called ‘brainstorming’– “for groups to develop varied and fresh perspectives on an issue, problem or project, and it is frequently used by leaders and consultants, with the assumption that this increases both productivity and creativity”. Cf.:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201204/why-brainstorming-doesnt-improve-productivity-or-creativity

The term was popularized by Alex Faickney Osborn in the 1953 book Applied Imagination. Osborn was an advertising executive that began developing methods for creative problem-solving sessions in 1939. Osborn outlined his method in the 1948 book Your Creative Power in chapter 33 “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming [Last updated: 22 August 2016]

Ray Williams, in his article published in Psychology Today on April 10, 2012, says: “That assumption may not be true”.

I am sending you a very well documented article on “brainstorming” written by Johan LETLER. If you are interested in more information on this subject, just let me know and I will send you more recent studies.

I wish you and enjoyable, insightful and fruitful reading.

References

 LETLER, Jonah, “The Brainstorming Myth”, The New Yorker, January 30, 2012. Cf.:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/groupthink

WILLIAMS, Ray, “Why Brainstorming Doesn’t Improve Productivity or Creativity”, Psychology Today, April 10, 2012. Cf.:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201204/why-brainstorming-doesnt-improve-productivity-or-creativity

https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/ray-williams

This article is an additional gift:

BRATNICKA, Katarzyna, “Creativity and effectiveness in organizations. A new approach to an old question”, Management, Volume 19, Issue 1, May 2015, pp. 33-45. Cf.: §*****§

003/manment-2015-0003.xml

 

Education for people and planet

Sustainable futures for all
“The 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) is both masterful and disquieting. This is a big report: comprehensive, in-depth and perspicacious. It is also an unnerving report. It establishes that education is at the heart of sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet it also makes clear just how far away we are from achieving the SDGs. This report should set off alarm bells around the world and lead to a historic scale-up of actions to achieve SDG 4.
The GEM Report provides an authoritative account of how education is the most vital input for every dimension of sustainable development. Better education leads to greater prosperity, improved agriculture, better health outcomes, less violence, more gender equality, higher social capital and an improved natural environment. Education is key to helping people around the world understand why sustainable development is such a vital concept for our common future. Education gives us the key tools – economic, social, technological, even ethical – to take on the SDGs and to achieve them. These facts are spelled out in exquisite and unusual detail throughout the report. There is a wealth of information to be mined in the tables, graphs and texts.
Yet the report also emphasizes the remarkable gaps between where the world stands today on education and where it has promised to arrive as of 2030. The gaps in educational attainment between rich and poor, within and between countries, are simply appalling. In many poor countries, poor children face nearly insurmountable obstacles under current conditions. They lack books at home; have no opportunity for pre-primary school; and enter facilities without electricity, water, hygiene, qualified teachers, textbooks and the other appurtenances of a basic education, much less a quality education. The implications are staggering. While SDG 4 calls for universal completion of upper secondary education by 2030, the current completion rate in low-income countries is a meagre 14% (Table 10.3 of the full report).”