Take a seat.
There is a widespread belief that serious learning belongs to the young — that by the time retirement arrives, the capacity to acquire new knowledge or develop new skills has largely passed its use by date. That belief is completely wrong. Accepting it uncritically is one of the most consequential mistakes a person can make in later life.
The brain retains a remarkable capacity for learning and development well into advanced years. The pace may change. The ease may change. But the capacity itself, in the absence of specific cognitive impairment, remains. There are some capabilities — among them executive function, learning and memory and creativity — that can be actively developed and improved at any age, and are worth developing improving and maintaining with the further benefit that improving them makes all subsequent learning easier. Curiosity is not just a pleasant quality. It is a practical asset, and one worth deliberately cultivating.
That said, learning in later life is most effective when it works with the brain rather than against it. Two things are worth understanding clearly.
The first is capability. The guidance here assumes intact cognitive function. For those already managing conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease or significant memory impairment, the situation may be quite different, so professional advice is the appropriate starting point. For everyone else, the question is not whether learning is possible, but how to make it as effective as possible.
The second is the forgetting curve. Most people are unaware that they have a personal forgetting timeline — a point at which newly acquired information, if not revisited, simply disappears. If something remains in memory for more than about 30 seconds, it is probably not short-term memory. The most efficient way to move something from short term into long term memory is through repetition timed to just before that point of forgetting. Not repeated immediately, and not left so long that the material is already gone, but revisited at the moment it is about to slip. This is not a complicated technique. It does require paying attention to your own patterns of retention, which most people have never been encouraged to do. How much time does it take you to forget?
There are other keys to effective learning in later life — some are well evidenced, others are still debated — and this is a developing field that continues to develop. What is not debatable is the value of staying engaged. Curiosity keeps a person connected to the world, to other people, and to the ongoing experience of personal growth. Its absence, by contrast, works toward withdrawal — a narrowing of the world with consequences that go well beyond the merely intellectual.
The connection to mental acuity is direct. The connection to purpose, to relationships, to engagement with life on its own terms — all of that runs through this as well. Learning is not preparation for something else. It is worthwhile in itself and achievable at any age,
Jack Lack’s Listening Chair is always here, as is your welcome.
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