Shirley McMahon Oktay waited until age 70 to retire because she liked her work as a physician and also thrived on the challenge of keeping up with the latest information.
"I always enjoyed studying," she said. Two years ago, after she stepped away from her psychiatric practice, she looked around to find a continuing education program.
There were many programs available through colleges and universities, but she decided instead to try to start a new lifelong learning program at the Duxbury Senior Center. Learning new things isn't just challenging and fun, Oktay said. It can also be good for your social life, connect you to your community, make you sharper mentally and may help you live longer. The Duxbury Lifelong Learning Program is in its second year and this fall offers four courses. Each course costs $25 and there is no membership fee. There is also a Saturday mini-program, with four presentations on musical themes for $10 each. All the courses are open to all with no age or residency requirements.
Joanne Moore, director of the council on aging, and Oktay hope the program will appeal to a wide range of seniors, from those in their 50s up to the late 90s , some of whom are already participating. Moore also hopes that the local program, which is not affiliated with a university, might be a good model for other communities. When Oktay looked at the lifelong learning programs at the colleges and universities in the Greater Boston and South Shore areas, she found they were either quite a distance away or might be costly for many seniors. Some charge a membership fee of about $150 and courses cost about $50.
Why not have something locally that costs less? And why not ask the many talented retired men and women in the South Shore to volunteer to present the courses? She took her idea to the council on aging, and with the board's support, a committee of volunteers was formed to work out a plan.
Oktay is chairman chairwoman of the committee, which now has 10 members. Last year, 15 courses were offered and 198 people signed up over three terms. This year, there will be two terms, as well as the Saturday mini-programs. Myrna Walsh of Duxbury jumped at the chance last year to sign up for a course about The New Yorker as soon as she retired at age 64. She had been executive director of the Health and Educational Foundation at South Shore Hospital. "I was thrilled to have the chance to take a course," Walsh said. "When you work intensively and you stop, you need to redefine yourself," Walsh said. "You worry your mind will turn to mush. To have this program available was so exhilarating." It is believed to be unique in the region and one of just a handful in the country that are independent of an academic center.
The volunteers who present the courses are not called teachers -- they may give short lectures, but the goal is to bring out group discussion and many points of view. They are called facilitators. Volunteers are stepping forward to suggest suggesting courses they might organize. "Once people get comfortable, they realize you don't have to be an expert and teach, that you just need to share an experience of studying something you enjoy," Oktay said. "Then they think of courses they would like to offer." Shareda Hosein, 46, of Quincy is giving a course this fall on Islam. Hosein is a chaplain at Tufts University and a Muslim who has spoken to other groups. She will present a basic overview of the teachings of Muslim teachings and seek to dispel myths -- especially those surrounding the concept of jihad and the roles of women in Muslim society. She will use two books, "Islam: A Short History" by Karen Armstrong and "Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources" by Martin Lings.
Mary Ann Kauffman, 70, cq of Plymouth is a retired Marshfield High School math teacher at Marshfield High School. She is eager to help others see "how cool numbers and patterns can be." Her course is called "Math Can be Fun (Believe it or not)" and will tackle such questions as "What do a headlight, a sunflower and a bridge have in common?" and "How can shapes be defined by numbers?" "I want to show people how to see patterns in math that you might not recognize if you weren't a student of mathematics," she said. Things like fFibonacci sequences, parabolic equations, conic sections and Pythagorean triples.
Now that's the kind of talk Oktay's grandmother probably would have liked.
When Oktay was 6, she asked her grandmother to sign her autograph book. Her grandmother wrote: "Count that day lost whose low, descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done."
Oktay says joking that she has been "burdened" ever since by the need to keeping learning and doing. Duxbury is the luckier for it.
For more information, call 781-934-5774.
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