{"id":2799,"date":"2019-11-01T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2019-10-29T10:16:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T14:16:09","slug":"lessons-in-living-and-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2019\/11\/01\/lessons-in-living-and-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons in Living (and Dying)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The students wore earplugs, gloves stuffed with tissues, goggles smeared with Vaseline, and heavy shoes. They had to concentrate to hear my instructions over the static playing in the room. I watched as they awkwardly moved around the classroom, completing tasks like sorting laundry, buttoning up a shirt, counting change, and writing a note and putting it in an envelope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half an hour later, the \u201cold age\u201d simulation ended. \u201cI was so nervous,\u201d one student said, \u201cand I had the hardest time buttoning this shirt.\u201d \u201cI couldn\u2019t hear anything,\u201d commented another. \u201cMy feet felt so heavy, and I wasn\u2019t sure I could do this,\u201d another added. These high achievers were relieved to have accomplished the tasks to the best of their abilities. And yet, they found meaning in the ways in which their perception of ability had shifted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiencing agency in the context of constrained mobility and balance, hearing, and tactile potential \u2014 for a mere 30 minutes \u2014 accompanied by the associated anxiety and decreased confidence, gave students a sense of what it might feel like to be old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Young
Julia Blackwell ’20 and Wynn Egginton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My hope with this exercise is that students in Sociology of Aging and the Life Course can better empathize with elders, including those with whom they\u2019ll spend many hours during the class. As part of this reading- and research-intensive course, each student must dedicate at least 30 hours outside of class time to a project in which the student befriends a local elder, conducts a two-part life history interview, and works with this elder to convert some aspect of their life history into a five-minute digital story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the class, students also reflect on their own generational contexts and individual turning points as young adults. We read about how young adulthood in America, particularly among the privileged, has turned into an extended period of life, much like old age. We talk about how many of them would soon be \u201cboomerang kids,\u201d returning to living at home with their parents after college. We discuss middle age, a time of life when the \u201cweathering\u201d effects of racism, poverty, and global beauty norms are starting to set in. Eventually we get to the reality of our aging population. Students participate in the old age simulation, and when we get to the death and dying unit, they write their own obituaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?<\/h2>\n

(responses from students, but often echoed by elders)<\/p>\n