Education Advice

It's Never Too Late To Learn

Everyone knows the old expression: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” True or false?

Absolutely true. It dates back to John Fitzherbert’s The Boke of Husbandry, published in 1534, describing that it is easier to train dogs when they are young, as opposed to when they are old. That is correct, and it literally refers to dogs.

Last I checked, people are a whole lot smarter than dogs. In fact, according to studies, the intelligence of the most intelligent dogs is comparable to that of a human toddler. If older people are unable to learn, it’s typically behavioral (e.g., stubbornness), not an actual inability to learn.

So let’s look at a case study of it never being too late to learn.

Case Study: My Mom

My mom received her associates degree in nursing and became a registered nurse (RN) in 1976. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA, first in her class. She excelled in her career, rising to the top of whatever she did in the field. When she decided to shift from hospital work to occupational health and provide medical support in the private sector, she had to renew many of her certifications that would not have been required had she continued to practice hospital nursing. Maintaining her licensure required continuing education hours, but not completely renewing her certifications.

She had been out of school for almost ten years. She was almost 40. So what did she do? She went back to school. It was not college, but she went back to taking the coursework to renew those licenses and certifications. Since she was working full time, she could not spend time with other students practicing on each other. It started when I was in middle school and continued until I was in high school. So I got to be her guinea pig when she wanted to practice procedures. I was intubated, received a nasogastric tube, had my hearing tested (which resulted in my diagnosis of Concert Goer's Hearing Loss), and many others. She straddled me for the intubation. I popped up on my head in a bridge to throw her off (it was quite unpleasant), but she posted and body scissored me. As it turned out, being a wrestler’s mom who went to wrestling practice a lot resulted in her learning a thing or two. The end result was that she received perfect marks again. She needed to continue her education, so she did. She needed to make adjustments due to lifestyle, no longer being a traditional student, so she did. The end result was that, once again, she continued to rise to the top of whatever she did.

When she decided to move into quality control and medical regulation, for the first time in almost twenty years, she was held back by not having a bachelors degree. She was offered the job but, being a government job, they had a rigid structure for pay scale. The job would pay one amount for having a bachelors degree or another amount for having an associates degree. It didn’t matter how much experience she had or how much they wanted her for the position. Those were the rules. So she asked them if they would pay for her to get her bachelors degree. They would. So she accepted the position and went back to college to get her bachelors degree in nursing. She was in her mid-forties.

At this time, I was a senior at Westminster University (then Westminster College of Salt Lake City) and had loved every minute of it. It just so happened that Westminster had a very good bachelor of nursing program. So I got to go to college with my mom for a year. I was editor of the newspaper that year, which was a very visible position on campus. At least once a week, somebody would come up to me with a big smile and say, “I met your mom today! She’s so tiny and hyper and cute!” Once again, she graduated with a 4.0 GPA, the top of her class. Her employer gave her the hike in pay because of having the more advanced degree. She even wrote a couple papers for school that I edited and were published in a couple medical journals.

All of this has been described not just in honor of my mom, who passed away last week, but also to make one very important point: it’s never too late to learn. Everything above describes my mom’s formal education in relation to her employment. But she epitomized the idea of perpetual learning in other ways, as well. When she was working at Shriners Hospital for Children, a large portion of the patients only spoke Spanish, so she started studying the language and achieved a respectable level of fluency to do her job and comfort the children she was treating. She independently studied acupressure for application in coordination with Western medicine. She was fascinated by Native American culture and had gone to Pow Wows, as well as participating in Native ceremonial sweats to experience the things that she had read about. She studied art and became a very accomplished painter, both through taking classes and independent work. She studied music and became a very accomplished pianist, both through formal instruction and independent study.

I have done what I can to be a Renaissance man. That was inspired as much by my mom as anyone. Yes, she often spoke about how much she valued education, both formal and otherwise, but she also walked the walk. I can’t think of better proof that it’s never too late to learn.

W.D. Kilpack III: Official Web Site