Retirement is Just the Beginning

As we at Northside AARP Community Group enter 2025, we would like to take some time reviewing our roots. Who are we? Why were we founded? Do we have a mission in 2025? To help answer these and other questions you might have, we ask you to view Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus’ video below put out by AARP Minnesota. Then, and this is very important, share your thoughts with us by commenting below, attending the coming January 7th Meeting or both.

After viewing we ask that each of us identify what it is that attracts us to Northside AARP Community Group and how we wish to participate in the coming year. The video identifies Ethel Percy Andrus’s areas of interest:

Pensions
Healthcare
Fair Housing
Lifetime Learning

Are any of these of interest to you? Do you have other areas you are interested in and would like to pursue these with other like-minded individuals. What are these?

Once you identify your interests, we invite you to share those with us by either commenting in the Blog, sharing those at our next meeting or both. Thanks for being part of our community.

Michael King and Black History Month

Mike shares his hopes for Julyteenth

Michael King, a regular at Northside AARP Community Group Monthly Meetings shares the continuing growth of Julyteenth, a program he started three years ago all generated by his vision and hopes of educating people of all ages of the struggles and accomplishments of the Black Community in the United States.

Mike has gathered together collaborators from The Chicago Historical Museum, The Underground Railroad Museum of Cincinnati Ohio, The Harold Washington Library and The Skokie Public Library. Mike hopes to show the movie “Summer of Soul”, the 2021 documentary directed by Ahmir Questlove of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and to sponsor book reading meetings with panels of experts addressing the question: “Where do we go from here”.

Finally, Mike asks all to stay tuned and spread the story of “Love Beyond Freedom” help finance the programs by buying a Teeshirt soon to be ready and most importantly attend any and all programs.

Author

Dan O’Donnell retired from Chicago Public Schools where he taught at the now closed Montefiore Special School from 1970 – 1980 and then again from 1997 -2007. From 1980 to 1997 he sold life insurance as an Agent for the Mass Mutual and broker for many other companies. Presently Dan spends his days writing and developing online learning opportunities. During his sixteen-year hiatus from teaching he remained in contact with Montefiore serving on the PTA and Local School Council as the community representative.

To the total chagrin of his sister Marianne, a stay-at-home mother of four, Dan’s proudest recognition came when Montefiore Principal Bernie Carlin nominated him as the Parent of the Year. Dan, as Marianne would tell you, never spent one night up with a colicky child…

Dan’s work experience taught him to respect and learn from people whose life’s paths differed from his own. Dan believes, that despite often feeling like an outsider, he belongs right where he finds himself, and that all that is gift.

Participate: Transform Your World

If your school experience was anything like mine, you were taught to seek “truth” and avoid innuendo hearsay and rumors. “Just tell the facts and let them speak for themselves”. I was further told that I could get the truth by reading certain books, newspapers and magazines as well as avoiding others. No one told me that all those suggestions were biased, that is they had a political agenda.

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) a Brazilian educator and author, growing up poor during the Great Depression of the 1930’s in Brazil and losing his father at the age of thirteen dedicated his life to improving the lives of the poor and marginalized. He saw the world differently than many of his contemporaries in Brazil often putting him at odds with those politically in control. Eventually, he prevailed and told his story leading to many awards and honorary degrees among them, the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.

Freire taught that while there may be one truth, we all, and that includes the poorest and most marginalized among us, have a distinct view of the truth based upon our experience. He further taught that we all need to listen to everyone, maybe especially to those whose experience is much different than our own, and hence their view of the truth may also be very different. In short he:

believed education could not be divorced from politics; the act of teaching and learning are considered political acts in and of themselves. Freire defined this connection as a main tenet of critical pedagogy. Teachers and students must be made aware of the politics that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions they bring into the classroom.^[49] Freire believed that Education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility for themselves as beings capable of knowing—of knowing that they know and knowing that they don’t.^[50]
Wikipedia

You can participate in Northside AARP’s monthly meeting this coming Tuesday, February 2 12:30 pm on Zoom to transform your world by listening to a possibly different view of American History than you were taught. We do this believing as Freire did, that hearing another view can help make us better people. One of our own neighbors, Don Bell will share his understanding of American History. Don is a retired higher education administrator and community activist.