Thelma Reese - How Seniors Are Saving the World

Thelma Reese, EdD, retired professor of English and of Education, created the advisory council for Hooked on Phonics and was its spokes-person in the 1990s. In that role, and as director of the Mayors Commission on Literacy for the city of Philadelphia, she appeared frequently on television and hosted a cable show in Philadelphia. She was a founder of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, chaired the board of Childrens Literacy Initiative, and organized the World Symposium on Family Literacy at UNESCO in Paris in 1994. She is a member of the national organization Life Planning Network and of her local positive aging group. She is coauthor, with Barbara Fleisher, of The New SeniorWoman: Reinventing the Years Beyond Mid-Life and The New Senior Man: Exploring New Horizons, New Opportunities, both published by Rowman & Littlefield, and has been an invited speaker at senior centers, senior living communities, and community centers about both books. A mother and grandmother, she lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Harvey Reese, author and artist.

BJ Kittredge, MEd, is a retired consultant to the healthcare industry. Her professional career began in the public school classroom where she taught elementary, middle, and high school. She was selected for the New Jersey Department of Education Academy for the Advancement of Teaching and Management. She served as chair of a district-wide K12 science curriculum development project and was a Geraldine R. Dodge fellow at Wesleyan University.

She moved from the academic sphere into operations in a major Philadelphia accounting firm and then a small publishing company. From there she was the first director of training and development in the member services division of US Healthcare. There she worked on the design and implementation of the department transition to self-directed teams. She authored and delivered original management training, Speakeasy communication skills programs, operations manuals for new IT systems, and a system for performance evaluation. She is the widow of Patrick W. Kittredge, Esq., and a proud mother and grandmother.

I n the Introduction, the authors said, This is a time when the lengthening of life coincides with an explosion of change. Do you still want to keep up with the changes taking place around you? What are some changes that are important to you, things that you find meaningful? Which changes do you see that you cant resolve in your mind?

When you look around in todays world, is there something meaningful to you that you think needs to be fixed? What have you learned through your life experience that could be a significant insight into a solution for this fix?

Each person in this book is using something they have inside themselves to make the human condition better. Does it occur to you that you have something to give that you hadnt realized you have? What is it?

Where are you in your life? Have the constraints of earning a living, raising children, preparing for the future eased at all? What would you choose to respond to if you had no limits?

Today there are many calls for help: some we sense when we look into anothers eyes; some we witness face to face. Some we know because we recognize that things are not as they should be. What do you care about profoundly? Where could you use your skills and your passion to answer the call for help?

Between the chapters, there are essays on some of the aspects of aging. There is a running theme among them: to engage, act, contribute, grow. Is there a way to make room in your schedule, in your life, to embrace a passion? Can you see yourself using that theme, following those steps?

Curiosity can be a path to discovery. But discovery usually implies leaving the comfortable and familiar life that we settle into in our senior years. In , Cirel and Cathy have built lives of discovery in very different ways. They also seem to be strongly motivated and decidedly fulfilled. Have you been curious about issues in your observations of life today? Can you apply your experience to engage in the dialogue these issues create? How?

There is no shortage of research about the positive effects of engagement, particularly in aging individuals. If you look at the word you see how it includes aging: eng aging. Would you enjoy more opportunities to broaden your perspective, to add to your connections? How would activism further that goal?

The people profiled in this book have chosen positive activism at a time when there is plenty of negative influence in the world. Do you think there is negative activism? If so, what could be done about it; what should be done about it?