Jeanne Backofen Craig

I'm a wife, mother, pianist, and runner living in Central Virginia.
You can learn more about me at wecraig.org/jeanne.
My videos can be found on my YouTube channel.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

"And Up" - I'm nearly there???

A few weeks ago, I took a Praxis exam to see if I had specific knowledge and expertise to add another endorsement to my teaching certificate.

After I received my (passing) score via email, I got a second email asking me to take a brief online survey to evaluate my Praxis experience.

I finally got around to taking the survey today, as I sit at home, sick.  When I got to the final question, it asked my age.  There was a pull-down arrow, and I expected to see age "groups" - like 20-29, 30-39, and so forth.

I was surprised that the pull-down generated a list of individual numbers.  I had to scroll a while to get to 47.  When I did, I was surprised by what followed.

48
49
50 and up

50 and up?

As someone who hopes to be a lifelong learner, I was a bit taken aback, like... do so few people over 50 take these tests that they just lump them all together?  Why?  Are we over the hill, intellectually?

Of course, that's not what it means.  I suppose by the time most people hit the age of 50, they're not looking at career changes.  Therefore, there are probably not many people that age who need to take these tests, and you might as well lump them all together in one category.  But still, it was kind of a shocker to see an age so close to my own being listed as "and up."

My mother and I have run races together for the past two decades.  I'm now in the age group she was in when we did our first one together.  So we've been slowly moving up through the age groups over the years.  This weekend, if I'm well enough, we will do another 5K race together.  I'm in the 45-49 age group and she is, for the first time in her life, in the "70 and up" category.  It's a strange feeling, knowing that she's part of such a small group of people that they lump them all together as "and up."

If you look at my mom, you sure don't see some feeble old woman on the decline.  If you look at any of the local 65-69 ladies in these races, they look just as good.  I try to remember how many women were racing 20+ years ago in my current 45-49 age group.  Maybe there weren't as many, and I bet they weren't as fast as the women in that group today.  Did the top age group used to be 60 and up?  It may have been, as I know my mother once won an award years and years ago for being the oldest woman in the race.  She must have been around 60.

There is a saying now that "50 is the new 30."  I think there's something to that.  I remember my grandparents at 70 and they were nowhere near as active as my parents.  Maybe if we all stay active as long as we can, mentally and physically, we can keep moving that "and up" category further out.

A quick Google image search yielded this book, so apparently the "Dummy" people believe there's enough of a market to publish a book on changing careers later in life.  Never stop learning and growing, forever onward and UPward!!

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