Generation E (ENCORE): Boomers’ Leaving a Legacy

By Gwen

Sarah Kershaw of The New York Times called me recently to ask about the impact on the psyche of baby boomers of all the celebrity deaths of the past few months. From Michael Jackson (50) and Farah Fawcett (62), through Patrick Swayze (56) and Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul, and Mary, 72), to icons of our boomer childhoods like Walter Cronkite (92) and Edward M. Kennedy (77), the last of the Kennedy brothers – where have all the flowers gone?

To me, at 51, these premature deaths and long lives represent both the compression and expansion of time, the realization that life is finite along with the likelihood that we will live much, much longer. Most of us who are crossing into our 50s today can expect to live well past 80. Time matters more, in a way that we didn’t realize in our 20s, and we have enough time to do something significant, something that matters. We get a second bite at the apple, with a new perspective.

“This is the first time so many have simultaneously had an awareness of death and the prospect of a whole new act,” I told Kershaw. “Never before have there been so many people who have so much experience and the time left to do something with it.”

Indeed, Kershaw’s question about “boomers” brought up another question. What, after all, does the Baby Boomer label tell us, and others, about our generation, other than the years when its members were born, 1946 to 1964, and its booming proportions.

The Greatest Generation is remembered for what it accomplished, the legacy of freedom it left for those who would follow, not for when its members were born (1901-1924). What will be our legacy, when the torch has passed on to X and Y, and the generations not yet named? Will we accomplish enough to be known for something more than demographics?

The combination of impending mortality and tremendous potential, multiplied by tens of millions, is really the heart of the boomer psyche. Millions of people, for the first time in American history, have both the time lived (experience) and the time left to do something that matters. Time enough to transform the legacy of a generation.

New York Times writer Michael Winerip calls his fine weekly column on the boomer experience “Generation B.” But if we make the most of this unique opportunity we stand to be remembered not just as the generation that was very large, but as Generation E, the encore generation. When they write our generation’s obituary, let them say that we seized the gift of insight and of time, and used that unique combination to leave the world better off for future generations.

Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, is author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life.   Posted 09/21/2009

Resources for Second-Career Teachers

By Gwen

Teaching has emerged as perhaps the most popular encore career path, and would-be teachers now have several new resources to help them get prepared.

www.EducationDegree.com lists more than 20,000 teacher education degree and certificate programs throughout the U.S., allowing users to search by specialty, state or type of degree. The California Teachers Corps, as part of its effort to place 100,000 new teachers by 2020, has identified 70 alternative-certification programs in the state.

Joe Deal, who developed a similar site for second-career nurses, spent most of the summer building EducationDegree.com. “The database behind it is pretty large. It was quite a bear to put together,” he said. For individuals seeking encore careers in teaching, Deal recommends visiting the alternative certification page, which lists fast-track programs.

EducationDegree.com includes lots of tips, background information about the history of alternative certification programs and teacher training programs, including Teach for America, which is attracting more older applicants.

Deal used the same compilation method that he used to build www.BecomeRN.com, his guide to second-career nursing programs. Remuneration works the same way as the nursing site, with some schools paying a small referral fee.

He advises checking with the Department of Education in the state where you wish to teach to verify certification requirements and to find out what other states might honor its teaching certificate. “It’s staggering how many variations in degrees there are,” he noted.

The California Teachers Corps lists both district- and university-based programs that provide alternative routes to teacher certification in all 58 counties in California on its Web site. In 2007-2008, half of all math teachers credentialed came from these programs. A location map on the site makes it easy to connect with a program coordinator in the area where a prospective teacher would like to become certified.

Posted 09/10/2009 – 1:02pm by  Terry Nagel

WHEN DOES “OLD AGE” BEGIN?

By Gwen

“When asked to specify the age when “old” begins,

boomers often offer a number a few years past their life expectancy.”

Thinking About Tomorrow -Susan Crandell

29 Jun 09 Getting old isn’t nearly as bad as people think it will be. Nor is it quite as good. On aspects of everyday life ranging from mental acuity to financial security, a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey finds a sizable gap between expectations that young and middle-aged adults have about old age and actual experiences reported by older adults themselves.

These generation gaps in perception also extend to the most basic question of all about old age: When does it begin? Survey respondents ages 18 to 29 believe that the average person becomes old at age 60 while middle age respondents say 70 and those 65 and older consider 74 to be the threshold.