BUTTERFLY EFFECT

As Edward N. Lorenz said, if there were two almost identical worlds, but in one of them a butterfly was flapping its wings and in the other it wasn’t, this tiny animal could cause a tornado in that reality, while in the other, absolutely nothing would happen. We all know the butterfly effect, right?

What would have happened if Juanjo had been given the chance to go to university? Or if his father had put him into the family business? Maybe he wouldn’t be retired, maybe he wouldn’t be happy, maybe he wouldn’t have met his wife, and maybe his children wouldn’t have been born. But all of this is in the past, right? And everyone knows you can’t change the past… But do you know what you can still change? That’s right, the future. Instead of thinking about the “what if…”, Juanjo could think about the “what will happen if…”, because even though he’s retired, Juanjo can always discover a new passion, a new way of life, a new source of inspiration.

In our society, you’re directed toward your working life while you’re still a teenager. Maybe, like Juanjo, you made a choice that made you happy your whole life, but it could also be the opposite. Why should a decision made while hormones are still controlling you mark the rest of your life? The answer is simple: it doesn’t have to.

BEYOND JUANJO

Juanjo was just an example (you know, so we’re on the same page), but in reality, there are many adults who are getting hooked on learning new things. According to data from the Ministry of Universities (2023), nearly 10,000 people over 60 enrolled in different universities nationwide during the 2021/22 academic year. Lola Alonso is one of those people. After retiring, and as her third degree, she decided to study Modern Languages and their Literatures at the Complutense University of Madrid. She even went on Erasmus!

As for the Basque Country, 138 people over 60 decided to take on this wonderful challenge.

However, it’s obvious that enrolling in university is not the only way to keep learning. Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses (1860–1961), was a clear example of this. She gave up her embroidery work at age 78 due to arthritis and began painting. After a collector discovered her work, Grandma Moses’ artistic career took off, becoming part of American popular culture. She was even on the cover of Time magazine! When she died at 101, in 1961, Anna Mary Robertson Moses left behind more than 2,000 works as her legacy. She said that, although she started painting just to pass the time, in the end it became a very important part of her life and something that helped her connect with others.

But you don’t have to become famous to learn something new: if we hop on a time machine and leave Grandma Moses far behind, we can travel to Biscay, where we find older people participating in the "Digital Kindness" programs of the Government of Biscay, where they learn to use digital tools to apply them in everyday life. And it’s worth stressing: there’s no such thing as small talent or small learning. Everything counts.

JUST IN CASE YOU’RE CURIOUS

If you’re one of those people with curiosity and a spark for continuing to learn anything, keep reading because there are several options for acquiring new knowledge in very different ways and methods.

On the one hand, there’s formal education, which means earning a degree at an institution authorized by educational administrations: a university degree or master’s, a course, a stage of study, etc. This type of education is characterized by granting an official diploma approved by the relevant authorities, certifying that the graduate has sufficient competencies to move on to the next educational level. The Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports states the following regarding this type of education for adults: “The education system must be flexible enough to allow adult training to be combined with work activity, and it must enable those who left their studies early to resume and complete them. That flexibility implies establishing connections between different types of education, facilitating the transition from one to another, and allowing the configuration of learning paths adapted to personal needs and interests.”

Then there’s non-formal education, which generally serves as an alternative or complement to formal education, usually in the form of courses, workshops, or seminars. Since this type of education doesn’t provide certificates endorsed by the relevant authorities, it’s often pursued to meet personal learning goals, “such as personal development, promotion of community values, socio-cultural engagement, social participation, improvement of living conditions, artistic, technological, recreational or sports learning, among others,” as the Ministry itself explains.

Lastly, there’s informal education, all the learning that isn’t institutionalized, that happens at home, at work, or in the community, among many other contexts. Learning math or programming on YouTube, learning to cook through a relative, or learning physics concepts by listening to a podcast would all be examples of this type of education. Let your creativity run free!

Although informal education is essential for learning from our environment, skills, and demands, here we’ll focus on formal and non-formal education to highlight the options an adult or older person has for continuing to study different subjects. Let’s start with what universities offer: EHU has a program called "Aulas de la experiencia de Bizkaia" where people without prior academic qualifications or experience, and over 55 years old, can obtain a University Degree in Humanities. For its part, the University of Deusto has been helping people regardless of age for 30 years with the program DeustoBide – School of Citizenship which until 2025 aimed to promote social exchanges and encourage critical and participatory citizenship. Starting this year, however, they launched the program “Degree in Culture and Society,” which offers a University Degree and the chance to relive or experience “the university lifestyle” for the first time. Finally, UNED (in Biscay) also has a senior program aimed at people over 55, whose main goal is to improve their quality of life.

On the other hand, the Basque Government has set up a tool called "Ikasgunea," where anyone who wants to find a public center to keep learning can do so. In these centers, you can usually resume secondary education or follow the non-formal education path, with courses that teach you to speak Spanish or Basque, or courses that teach you to properly handle ICTs, among others.

DON’T WAIT FOR THE BUTTERFLY

For all these reasons, it’s important to think about what you can do in the present or near future; that way, while the Juanjo of a parallel world lives a life full of peace and, generally, boredom (I mean, what does a 70-year-old do waking up at 6 a.m. on a random Tuesday?), the Juanjo of this world could be discovering something that changes his life. We’ll never know if it was because of the flap of a butterfly’s wings or because of curiosity and a desire to learn… but let’s hope it’s the latter.