Oregon daily emerald., January 16, 1981, Page 3, Image 3

Education’s new wrinkle
Learning was vital
to elderly ex-student
StOflM
By JIM GERSBACH
Of th« Emerald
Vincent Simonton died during finals week of
winter term 1980. He had just finished a paper for his
gerontology class when he went to his bedroom, lay
down and had a heart attack. He died a short while
later.
Simonton, who was 72, was one of a growing
number of students over 55 years old attending the
University. Like many of these older students, learning
was one of the most important things in life to Simon
ton.
Simonton was a professional photographer most
of his adult life, and took World War II reconnaissance
photos of Nagasaki before the atomic bomb fell on the
city. He was among the first detail of American soldiers
to enter the devastated city.
He never forgot the sights, sounds and smells of
Nagasaki, says his widow, Betty Simonton. Those war
experiences enabled Simonton, like many other older
students, to bring a special richness to his classes, a
wealth of living he readily shared with younger
students.
“He would sit down and talk to people about their
experiences and relate that to how he had handled
similar things in his own life,” says Ted Cope, a
classmate and friend of Simonton’s.
Simonton's readiness to share his enthusiasm for
learning and living stemmed in part from a realization
that he’d been given a second chance.
“In July of 1969 Vince died in my arms in tne
emergency room after having a heart attack,” says
Simonton’s widow, Betty, “i asked God to bring him
back if he had work to do.”
A medical team brought him back to life, and
Simonton's new vocation became encouraging learn
ing among his aging peers and showing young people
that wrinkles don't mean the end of life.
After recovering from his heart attack, Simonton
enrolled at Linn-Benton Community College and
eventually became LBCC’s oldest graduate. While
there Simonton met Cope, who was young enough to
be his grandson.
For Cope and his wife Jodi, Simonton offered a
model of what old age could be.
“He was very young in spirit,” says Jodi Cope.
“He was always reaching for higher goals. I’d like to be
the same when I’m 72.”
Simonton broke down campus age barriers by
helping younger classmates know an older person as
an individual. Simonton felt students would remember
what he said when they were older, or when they met
an older person, says his widow.
Jodi Cope agrees. “Knowing Vince, I’ve been
able to be more comfortable around the elderly. I
didn’t used to know how to act around the elderly. But
after having met Vince I realize I’m a part of them.
"I’ve also learned," says Jodi, “that since the
elderly have been through so many experiences we
have yet to go through that we can learn from them.”
Her husband Ted agrees. “If I had as much belief
in myself as Vincent did, I’d be really well off. He knew
what he wanted, he knew where he was going.”
Graphic by Sioux Anderson
Simonton refused to be treated as an unap
proachable father figure, say his friends. ‘‘He knew he
had a lotto learn," says Ted Cope. “He didn’t consider
himself wise.”
Peer acceptance for Simonton was very impor
tant, says Betty. “He didn’t like to be considered a
fuddy-duddy. He believed in young people. He just
loved the students on campus and the way they
accepted him.
“Learning was exciting to him. He’d come home
and say, ‘Honey, hey, look at this,' " Betty Simonton
says.
"It was possible not only for him to take the
courses but to get A's and B’s."
That sense of belonging, of making a
contribution, meant the difference between life and
death for Simonton, says his widow. "We both felt that
it probably made a difference of whether he lived or
died.
“Even though it was ironic that he died during
finals week, he was doing what he wanted to.”
Elderly in college
promote new ideas
Along with the rest of the country, the average
age of University students is getting higher. And it’s
not just because there are fewer 18 to 22-year-olds.
Older people are returning to school in increasing
numbers, bringing needed tuition dollars and making
new demands on the system.
Those tuition dollars amounted to $376,000 from
the Community Education Program during the
1979-80 school year, says Chris Munoz, outgoing
director of CEP.
Older students especially demand more practical,
hands-on instruction and more accountable instruc
tors in return for their tuition, says Munoz.
“You take a person with three teenage sons, a
$55,000 mortgage and a full-time job. If he makes an
appointment and the professor doesn’t show, he will
be out a lot more than an 18-year-old student who may
be able to schedule another meeting more easily."
Older students, especially those in the daytime
labor force, are asking for more night classes. Night
students already outnumber day students three-to
two at schools such as San Jose State in California,
says Munoz, and the trend is growing.
Classroom learning also may be altered as older
students take more lecture classes, says Munoz.
"Older students usually bring more real world
experiences to class than younger students.’’ They
can draw on their own experiences to offer a per
spective other than the professor’s, he adds, making
learning a group process rather than just accepting or
rejecting what a professor says.
Although two students claim to be 99, the cam
pus’ oldest currently enrolled student probably is an
88-year-old man who asked not to be identified.
But while the influx of older students will bring
changes to University programs, older students
themselves face adjustment hurdles in returning to
school.
After decades of earning a living or raising a
family, many are insecure about returning to college,
says Mickey Donahue of the University’s Lifelong
Learning Services.
“The homemaker in her 40s or 50s who has been
widowed or divorced is sort of in never-never land.
She’s not eligible for welfare because her family is
raised, she has no recent work experience, and she’s
not eligible for unemployment,” says Delpha Camp, a
counselor with Displaced Homemakers, an organiza
tion that counsels widowed, divorced and separated
homemakers on campus and from the community.
About 65 percent of all older students are women,
most of whom return to college either to gain marke
table job skills or “to follow a lifelong dream, to
become something they’ve always wanted to be,”
says Camp.
“Most are suffering from a tremendous lack of
self-confidence,” she adds.
They doubt their own capacity to think as fast as
younger students, she says, but they usually do well in
classes. Motivation is a big factor in their success.
“Their parents aren’t paying the bill,” says Camp.
“And they don’t have their whole life in front of them
where they can take a year off.”
Urban Indians experience conflict of values
By LESLIE FARRIS
Ol tti* Errwald
Problems of urban living have driven Native Amer
icans of many tribes to become members of one com
munity, according to a group of Indian leaders.
"Seattle today is a conglomeration of American
Indians and Alaska Natives - 20,000 Indian people
representing 200 different tribes,” Harold Belmont said
Thursday at the American Indian Urban Community
1981 symposium.
"As we live in an urban setting, many of the
difficulties we experience in city life is the conflict in
values between living in that setting and being home on
the reservation,” said Belmont, a member of the Seattle
Indian Health Board.
“I was told that the difference in values can be
defined very academically,” he said. "The value of the
dominant society is one of ownership, but the value of
the native society is one of being.
"These problems begin to create further prob
lems,” he added, "problems of identity, problems of
survival — employment, education, housing."
Another Indian value not fully appreciated by the
rest of society is Sharing, said Tallulah Pinkham of the
Yakima Indian Health Service. Pinkham said a word for
greed does not exist in her native language.
‘‘A great misrepresentation by the non-Indian world
is that Indians are so docile, that you can take anything
from them,” she said. “But we were taught to respect
the human being, and to share. If you give hate, you
receive hate.”
Pinkham said problems of American Indian chil
dren attending public schools sometimes can be
attributed to value differences. Children taught by
traditional parents to listen and remain silent may be
considered dull and uncooperative by their public
school teachers.
However, because of "the changing world,” Pink
ham said even enemy tribes now are joining together to
celebrate their common heritage and solve their com
mon problems.
"I’m feeling better because we are all becoming
one,” she said. “We are beginning to realize how we
have to protect the things we reservation people and
traditional people took for granted.”
Identity problems of urban Native Americans is
partly responsible for the nearly 60 percent alcoholism
rate of their population, Belmont said. He calls it “the
most devastating problem" facing his community.
"To be quite frank with you, alcoholism and Indians
in prison are really not a priority among a lot of our
people," Belmont said. '‘But we began to find that if we
approached this with a positive attitude, we could
develop resources to meet the need. We began to find
out that existence in an urban jungle could become a
little more comfortable."
The Seattle Indian Health Board established a
program to provide treatment, rehabilitation, education
and counseling for Indian and Alaskan Native al
coholics.
"Clients find it easier to relate to counselors who
share their cultural background,” Belmont said. “One
of the most neglected areas in the treatment and
rehabilitation of alcoholics has been the spiritual
aspects.”
. He said 90 percent of Native Americans in jails are
put there for alcohol-related crimes.
“We believe alcoholism is the number-one social
and health problem today throughout this great country
of ours," Belmont said. "But we want to share with you
the encouragement that things can be done.”
The symposium, sponsored by the University’s Native
American Student Union, continues today in Room 167
EMU.
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