By Jack Cumming
Recently, I set myself a task that most would avoid but which proved surprisingly thought-provoking. That task was to reread George Eliot’s, Silas Marner. You may not know either the author or the book, but it has the potential to teach more about building senior living communities than any contemporary academic analysis.
Understanding Communities
Let me explain. I was interested in learning more about why some purpose-built communities come together well, even as others seem dysfunctional. This phenomenon is central to senior housing. Some communities, like Goodwin Living in Northern Virginia, are very successful. Others, though, have residents at odds with operating management.
This may seem a little like trying to understand why some marriages work and others … well … do not seem to have been made in heaven. Sensing that commonality, I first looked to social psychology as a possible starting point. Someone suggested a book, and I dove right in.
The book was, Attached, coauthored by Amir Levine, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, and Rachel Heller, a psychologist. That led me to a school of psychology, “attachment theory,” attributed to John Bowlby, a British child psychiatrist, and Mary Ainsworth, a developmental psychologist.
“Attachment theory” posits that the bond between infants and their primary caregivers is informative for subsequent adult behaviors. That seemed like Sigmund Freud’s observation that infancy is critical for human development. In today’s understandings, that’s self-evident.
Deeper Understanding
If modern clinical psychology originated with Freud, with attachment theory seeming obvious and even trite, I considered what wisdom that could inform community formation existed before Freud. My first thought was that wisdom about human behaviors was found in literature.
I then remembered a book we were forced to read in high school that had no meaning for me at the time. The book was George Eliot’s, Silas Marner. From later studies, I knew, though, that Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was a novelist fascinated by medicine (e.g., Middlemarch).
That seemed the reverse of Freud’s path as a physician fascinated by the stuff of novelists, infidelity, etc. The novelist’s eye for emotions seemed more likely to be productive for my quest than did Freud’s clinical approach. That proved to be dramatically true, and it opened to my adult understanding, a curricular misadventure from high school.
Community Insights
Silas Marner is about communal life in a small English village in the early 19th century. Get it? The communal life depicted in Marner is very similar to communal life in senior living today, or to communal life in any era, for that matter. The language is colloquial and archaic, but that can heighten the sense of universality that can inform our understanding of senior living communities. Every community is both universal and unique. Here’s an example:
“Priscilla here turned to the Miss Gunns, rattling on in so much preoccupation with the delight of talking, to notice that her candour was not appreciated.”
We can all think of people who talk at length with little content of interest. Perhaps, even, that is more common among the residents of a senior living community than among younger people. Still, I know many corporate leaders who like to sing at length about their unique insights and wisdom.
Another example comments on medical practice and might be as valid today as it was then, though the remedy proposed would not be accepted today.
“Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during the last two years, having been strongly urged to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice ‘good for the fits’, and this advice was sanctioned by Dr. Kimble, on the ground that it was as well to try what could do no harm – a principle which was made to answer for a great deal of work in that gentleman’s medical practice. Silas did not highly enjoy smoking and often wondered how his neighbours could be so fond of it.”
Even today, many a doctor would never question the use of chicken soup as a remedy for a cold or a spoonful of honey for a cough.
Assuming you were inflicted with the reading of Silas Marner before your awareness was ready for the encounter, you remember that Silas was a miser, hoarding money, until Providence sent him a greater purpose. That, too, has its parallels in senior living. There are many who are motivated more by personal gain or personal adulation until something brings them to turn emotionally, as Silas did, toward a higher mission.
Education and Training
That brings us to the subject of this article, the distinction between education and training. Both have come to be found on college campuses today. Education is a broad exploration of human experience. I was blessed to have early been attracted to culture and history, and I continued to pursue that interest in graduate school, though I never completed a dissertation.
Training involves indoctrination into the practices of a vocation. Many people major in business, social sciences, or practical arts. I was also blessed to find employment at age 22 that allowed me to work my way through the examinations to qualify as a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. Like reading for the law, actuaries are still able to learn without having to spend time in classrooms.
There is a difference between training and education, and, candidly, the advanced study of history has served me better in business than has the mastery of the math, compliance, and business concepts required for Fellowship.
Authority or Skepticism
Here’s my explanation of why that has been so. With training, even in a university, there is usually a textbook that forms the authority for the course. Students are expected to master the text, and that requires memorization. The result is to reduce emphasis on the art of questioning the status quo. I know of no vocational program that encourages students to question the textbook in search of a better approach.
Education is different. Understanding of human nature and critical thinking form the core of what is taught. A good history professor, or literature, philosophy, or even religion professor, encourages students to challenge the understanding that the professor presents in the lecture hall. The professor is usually still learning as opposed to vocational professors who are mostly teaching.
Well-Rounded is Best
Both skills, mastery and creativity, are the makings of great business leaders. Business is continuously changing and rapidly at that. History can help understanding of how progress advances. Those who have been schooled in business or other vocational curricula are well served later in life to delve into the humanities, especially history and literature, to gain the adaptive skills to stay ahead of the pace of change.
For those grounded in the humanities, business requires an understanding of finance, economics, risk management, accounting, and other technical topics. Presumably, a university experience has developed skills of rapid reading, absorption of varying customs and practices, and clarity in writing. People wishing to prepare for the opportunities ahead can benefit from reading in the areas they missed in college. Writing and publishing can hone clarity of vision and attract helpful feedback.
Learning is lifelong and never stops, whether it is credentialed by the awarding of degrees or merely provides the basis for more effective leadership.
