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Forum  > The Mind and the Brain  > The new scince of wisdom number 2
Reflection on ABC Catalyst
Author Message
koro
posted on October 11, 2006 07:14:10 PM
Well, Aunty Bev, here is a response to your comments and the excellent and inspiring ABC Catalyst program on the 5th October. I have gone down the formal road of learning and in my early fifities, am just starting to integrate my informal life knowledge and thoughts with the formal stuff. I work in the careers and employment area in Australia and the idea that people are on the scrap heap at 50, particularly men with trade type training, is alive and well for sure. However, like or lump it, one of the antidotes to this prejudice is for an older bloke to do some formal training that can extend their skills and make them more of a mentor, trainer, workleader. The advantage of formal TAFE training is it gives credibility in the marketing exercise that getting employment has become. There are plenty of older men doing exactly that and holding their own in a prejudiced and ill-informed community. I am not defending the ageism that predominates, but I won’t talk down formal training either. It is important for people to prove their credentials to the others who are going to pay them to carry out work. Just saying you’ve got wisdom isn’t enough. The advice I often give older tradespeople with engineering related skills is consider doing some OHS training or a Cert IV in workplace training and assessing and position yourself so that you can use the wisdom. OHS is an area that has changed considerably since the days when your husband first developed his technical skills. It’s a great opportunity to continue building on them and reaping some rewards from it. We get our wisdom, and have the opportunity to express it, in a social context. The context wants to evaluate what we have to offer and the most effective way to compare it with other people’s wisdoms is to look at benchmarks, like training, experience and so forth. It also provides good evidence as an antidote to the ageist attitude that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Resisting further or formal training and recognition of skills on the grounds that you already have enough wisdom isn’t really persuasive. It just makes one look like a fogey who doesn’t want to step outside of their comfort zone and keeps referring to the “golden, good old days.� And it is important to change attitudes of the younger generation if ageism is to be challenged. That is the social context we operate in. It’s never too late, Aunty Bev. Lets shake up their frameworks.
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