In 1972 a monumental paper was written about Aboriginal education; Indian Control of Indian Education (NIB, 1972), outlined educational policy for Indigenous people, written by Indigenous people, calling for self-determination in education (removing government control, and ending forced assimilation through educational policies). At the same time a new field of educational study was coming into being – educational gerontology, the study of instructing older people, instructing about older people, and instructing professionals on working with older people (Findsen & Formosa, 2011). Neither the NIB’s education policy, nor the field of educational gerontology truly embraced the older adult’s needs for and rights to age appropriate educational programming.
Adult education was discussed briefly in Indian Control of Indian Education, “adult education programs, properly conducted can be a means for many Indians to find economic security and self-fulfillment” (NIB, 1972, p.12), suggesting programming be focused on academic upgrading in mainstream subjects, adult basic literacy, along with, “business management, consumer-education, leadership training, administration, human relations, family education, health, budgeting, cooking, sewing, crafts, Indian art and culture”(p.13). The focus on lifelong learning seemed to end with education for employability and for family responsibility; the older adult, retired from the labour force, and with family that is grown and gone, remains marginalized in Indigenous educational policy discourse.
Geragogy is the pedagogy that extends the field of educational gerontology, through Critical Educational Gerontology (CEG), where the socio-economic and socio-political aspect of older adult education focuses on learning activities that are emancipatory (Findsen & Formosa, 2011); CEG seeks “to liberate senior students from stereotypical assumptions about what it means to be old, change attitudes towards older people, and open up new possibilities for later life” (p.94). For the Indigenous learner, geragogy allows the individuals to use their life experiences as a means to enact social change within their own communities. Intergenerational learning opportunities are promoted, where the older adults are able to share their languages, culture, arts, history, and spirituality with the youngest generation, bringing new meaning and place in the community for the ageing Indigenous population.
References
Findsen, B., and Formosa, M. (2011). Lifelong learning in later life: A handbook on older adult learning. Boston: Sense Publishers.
National Indian Brotherhood. (1972). Indian Control of Indian Education. Yellowknife: Author.
