An interview with an adult life-long learner, my mother, 80 year old Margaret Campbell.(M)

Q: Are you still learning things now? How?
M: By reading things now. I am not going to school.
Q: What do you read and learn about?
M: Nutrition, crafts, religion and spiritual readings. Nature that covers a lot of subjects. Some health and natural alternatives. Mainly toward the natural stuff.
Q: What is the most significant thing that you have learned in the last five years?
M: Five years? I can’t do this without getting spiritual so I don’t know how this affects your interview.
Grief is temporary, God will provide, He has been with me thru the lonely hours and with His help I will survive on my own. Just make sure you capitalize Divine Providence. Significant. That’s about it.
Q: Over your life time what was the method you learned the most from? Visual, hearing, reading or doing?
M: What was that? Visual, hearing, reading or what? Doing. Probably reading.
Q: Life time reader
M: Yeah my earliest books were Bobbsie Twins and Nancy Drew. I read before that but don’t remember them.
Q: What part of education best served you?
M: Religion and Reading.
Q: Go on
M: When I say religion I don’t mean the study of a particular denomination. It’s the overall basic tenants of Christianity. I don’t know how people without God can get thru anything. I couldn’t get thru it. I said in Bible class just last week, I don’t know how people do it without God.
Q: and reading?
M: I think some reading enlightens me, some gives me pleasure, some gives me food for thought, and some makes me want to go on learning about something. My main problem in reading is reading instructions or directions, like in a board game. Just do it and I‘ll pick it up with you.
Q: What have you learned that way by doing set instructions?
M: Crocheting back when I did it. Crafts. I’d like to write, in a way, but I don’t believe an in journals. I know a lot ob book say to write in journal but I don’t believe in that. I’d like to design houses and clothing but I don’t know how to do it. I’d like to do that for all the people. It’s amazing when you get older you start to see living from a different angle.
Q: Doing?
M: Eating better nutrition. I have learned to enjoy reading.
Q: You mentioned different reading enjoyments. What makes you want to go on learning something? Example?
M: Well onetime a situation come and someone asked does anyone know Spanish and no one says they can help. Wanting to know Spanish would have helped. I am going to go on learning crazy quilting. It takes in color and design. That’s one of the reason I want to tackle it. It’s piecing together pieces without squares, lines, anything goes, and I like it because it is not disciplined. She is making me think.
Q: Something wrong with that?
M: two top things on my list to learn: Spanish and crazy quilt. Spanish you need to speak to someone with the accent. It’s hard to do with just the tapes and books.
Q: You have tried Spanish tapes and books.
M: Yes I can read very little Spanish. It’s kind of on the back burner right now.
Q: What was your elementary and high school like for learning? What was useful to you?
M: I didn’t have archery. To think the kids were taking archery. In high school kids were taking archery. I had two years of high school and two years of business school. I used to think when making the babies formula that ratio was the only useful thing in math that did me any good. Business school was useful. I struggled with geometry in high school. I liked English, I guess we had literature. I dislike Shakespeare and did not get into it. I had Latin. It helps as far as language goes but like finding a base root of a word. No gym because of my knees. Business school I had typing shorthand, English, grammar and bookkeeping. I liked grammar and we had religion. Business school was useful. I never had a course in Psychology I think I would have liked a course in psychology.
Q: They say that knowledge becomes wisdom with life experiences. Is that true for you?
M: I have wisdom but I don’t think I got it from learning. To me wisdom is a gift. I think basically my wisdom comes from the Bible. Depends on how you define it. There are a lot of ways, knowing right from wrong, morality, is it a good morality? Knowing consequences, knowing the wisdom between taking a right and wrong action. They need someone with wisdom to clean up that oil spill. It’s knowing what God’s will, God’s law says about things. Wisdom?
Q: Is wisdom like operating on auto pilot? Is it a knowing?
M: It comes from within the combination of your spirit your mind your emotions what you have learned of the situation, I don’t have to sit down and draw up wisdom it kind of built in. That’s not quite good grammar.
Q: Do you wish there were more adult education?
M: I went down to the adult learning center -they only teach computer. I do not wish to learn computer.
Q: What do wish you could learn? Formal or informal?
M: I thought about an ad in the paper for a Spanish speaking women who could teach me Spanish and I could teach her English.
Q: Any opinions?
M: Learning keeps you alert and keeps you connected it keeps your wheels going. I pity the person who says they have nothing to learn.