HRD 559
TO: Registrants in HRD 559 (Aging, Death
and Bereavement)
FROM:
Mike Brady
RE: Advance-Organizer for Summer Institute
DATE:
Welcome to the annual summer institute in
gerontology education. The primary
purpose of this memo is to help us all to get ready for the five-day course
scheduled from Monday, June 23 through Friday, June 27.
As is the case with most intensive
institutes that carry academic credit, there are three basic phases to this
course: (1) reading, writing, and
thinking prior to the first class
(2) The
five consecutive days of class where we shall experience lectures, films, guest
speaker presentations, small group exercises, and general class discussions
(3)
Post-institute writing intended to help students consolidate their learning and
make appropriate applications to their own profession or field of study. This initial “advance-organizer” phase
consists of two parts.
Four core books are required of all
participants in this institute. They
are:
The
Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (if you purchase the “Signet Classics”
or some other collection of Tolstoy’s work that includes this novella, it isn’t
necessary to read the other stories).
As
We Are Now by May Sarton
A
Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
Tuesday’s
With Morrie by Mitch Albom
All of these
are relatively small books (in size, not content!), are published in paperback,
and consequently are relatively inexpensive.
They have been ordered through the USM-Gorham campus bookstore and are
available there. Each of these core texts
will also be available in most bookstores.
Since the core readings are relatively
brief, I’m asking that each student read an additional book, a choice of one
of the following four selections:
The
Undertaking by Thomas Lynch.
Personal reflections by a literary funeral director. Insightful and at times hilariously funny.
The
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Although published not long ago, this book is
already being called a “classic” in the genre of cross-cultural death studies.
Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and
Communications of the Dying by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley. A highly acclaimed set of stories and
reflections written by two experienced hospice nurses.
The
Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The life story of this famous physician and
death educator told in her own words.
All of these books are published in
paperback and are readily available in libraries and bookstores. There is no requirement to write any formal
reviews or reports about this fifth book (or any of the other readings). However, the final page of this document includes
a number of advance-organizer questions that will help us to organize class
discussion around the course readings.
You may wish to make notes about these questions to bring with you to
class. But nothing needs to be handed
in.
Since a substantial focus of this course
is on the development of personal awareness,
I have
found it helpful over the years to ask people to write several exercises prior
to the first class. These materials are for
your eyes only and are not going to be passed in (although I may ask for
volunteers to share their perspectives with the group).
First Exercise: Write a short obituary about yourself. It may help to read a few obituaries in the
newspaper before you attempt to write your own.
Include the age at which you died, the cause, and some information about
your major accomplishments in life.
Remember that an obituary differs from a death notice in that it is
really a kind of biography.
It’s important to note here that some
people have belief systems that makes it
discomforting or stressful to predict a date of death. If this is the case with you, feel free to
either skip that detail in the exercise or pre-date your date of death to a
time already passed. The intention here
is not to make your life unbearably anxious over the next few months. Rather, it is to provoke thought and feelings
about your mortality.
Second Exercise: Now – the poets can shine! Please write an epitaph for yourself.
Third Exercise: Think about the following question and
perhaps jot a few notes down about it (no need to write your thoughts out in
great detail): If you were told you had
90 days left to live - and obtained a second opinion which confirmed this
prognosis - what would you do with your time?
As I’ve already mentioned, our week
together will involve a myriad of teaching and learning activities and will
keep us quite busy. We’ll be working
hard during the day and I’ve learned over many years of facilitating such
institutes that it is important for us to keep the evenings free for rest and
relaxation - not more school work. This
is another reason why I ask that we do this reading and writing before the
institute begins.
I also want to repeat that, for those
taking this course for three graduate credits, there will be work to do after
the conclusion of the five days of class (those auditing HRD 559 are asked to
do all the advance-organizer activities enumerated in this memo, but not the post-institute work). These post-institute assignments will not be
inordinately long or complex and you’ll have approximately six weeks to do
them. In fact, I promise that you’ll
have a number of choices in these assignments, intended mostly as debriefing
and integrating exercises, and will be encouraged to select those which meet
your own professional development needs.
Therefore, it’s appropriate to
consider HRD 559 to be more of a “four month course” than a “five day
course,” the beginning of which is now
with the receipt of this memorandum.
Please call me at 207–780–5312 or e-mail: mbrady@usm.maine.edu if you have questions about anything in this
memo. I look forward to meeting you at
Be well - and thanks.
Questions to Consider While Reading HRD 559 Books
Note: During the institute we shall have several
occasions to discuss the core readings in small groups and as an entire
class. The questions below will be
integrated into discussion instruments that may include other material we
experience during the institute. Having
a chance to ponder them in advance may help enrich the quality of our
conversation in late June.
As We Are Now by May Sarton
1.
What
role do you think Caro's writing had in her life? As you think about her writing, do you
believe keeping a journal contributed to the decision she makes at the end of
the story? Why / why not?
2.
Early
in her journal, Caro writes this:
"Am I senile? I
wonder. The trouble is that old age is
not interesting until one gets there, a foreign country with an unknown
language to the young, and even to the middle-aged. I wish now that I had found out more about
it." What implications do you see
from this statement for educators and health/human service professionals?
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
1.
What,
if anything, did you learn about the grieving process from reading this book?
2.
Please
reflect on the opening line of A Grief
Observed: "No one ever told me
that grief felt so much like fear."
3.
What
metaphors and/or similes does C. S. Lewis employ to describe his experience
with grief? Do any of these speak
meaningfully to you? Which? Why?
The Death of Ivan
Ilych by Leo
Tolstoy
1.
From
what Tolstoy has described, what are the major fears of dying persons?
2.
What
needs did Ivan have that went unmet by his family and friends?
3.
What
did you learn from Tolstoy's story that you might may apply to your own life?
Tuesdays With Morrie
by Mitch Albom
1.
Morrie
was 76 years old when he was diagnosed with ALS. How might he have reacted if he were Mitch’s
age? In your view how much of Morrie’s
attitude and reaction to his fatal illness was a function of age?
2.
Morrie
talks to Mitch about “the tension of opposites” (p. 40). Where, if anywhere, do you see this tension
manifested in other parts of the book?
In our society as a whole (vis-à-vis issues concerning aging and death)?
3.
What
“big ideas” do you derive from Tuesdays
With Morrie about the key themes of this course: aging, death, and bereavement?