Old School Anti-Ageism Clearinghouse with Kyrié Carpenter and Ryan Backer

Disclaimer: Unedited AI Transcript

Announcer (00:06):

You are connected and you are listening to specifically for seniors, the podcast for those in the Remember When Generation. Today's podcast is available everywhere you listen to podcasts and with video at specifically for seniors YouTube channel. Now, here's your host, Dr. Larry Barsh

Larry (00:39):

Ageism, according to the World Health Organization, refers to how we think, feel, and act toward ourselves or others based on age. It affects people of all ages and exists in our institutions, our relationships, and ourselves. Many of us have experienced the effects of ageism as an older adult in the workplace, in a hospital, in public places, in a nursing home, and in both the media and entertainment industries. Specifically for seniors has talked about ageism withCarl Honoré and Ashton Applewhite on previous podcasts. Today, our guests on specifically for seniors are the co co-founders of the Old school Anti Ageism Clearinghouse. The old school curates creates commissions and disseminates free resources to educate people about ageism and how to end it. We've met Ashton Applewhite on a previous podcast. Ashton is a co-founder of the Old School, and today I'd like to introduce the other co-founders and learn more about the old school Curer. Carpenter was trained as a therapist and works as a facilitator and public speaker specializing in ageism and dementia. She is editor of the Changing Aging blog, author of Healing Dementia, and is adjunct faculty at us, I and Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Larry (02:37):

Ryan Becker is an age activist public speaker and self-proclaimed old person in training. Ryan was a fellow with Boston University's Center for anti-racist researchers, anti bigotry convening. Ryan does care work, organizes interr events and groups, and writes zines and sits on the board of two community-based nonprofits. Ryan has an undergraduate degree in gerontology with a minor in black studies from New York College, city of University, New York. Thanks for coming on and welcome to specifically for seniors.

Kyrié (03:25):

Thanks for having us.

Ryan (03:26):

Thank you.

Larry (03:29):

How did you guys come together? How did the old school develop?

Kyrié (03:34):

Well it started on a curb in Berkeley. Ashton was giving a talk there and I was living in the Bay Area and so in San Francisco, so it popped over and she was like, what are you up to these days? I have had this idea I really wanted to do for a while. Have I just wish that there was a central repository for everything, anti ageism out there. I feel like that would really help the movement to have a one-stop shop, if you will, of all the best anti ageism resources. You wanna help me with this? And I said, sure. And then we kind of, as we started digging around, realized it was, it was gonna be a little bit of a bigger project than we thought. And, and so then she said, you know, I've been really wanting to look for an opportunity to collaborate with Ryan. And that's where they sort of got looped in and I'll pass the story baton over to them to take it from there.

Ryan (04:25):

Yeah. So when Ki and I first met ki said, did Ashton tell you, you know, did Ashton give you any direction? And I said, no, and, and I said the same thing, did Ashton give you any direction? And Currie said No. And so we kind of went in and, and started to sort of manage ourselves in finding all the different resources that we could, or rather I helped continue to find the resources that Currie had started to find and that Ashton had helped compile too. So we really started to dig in deep, you know, into the internet, find whatever we could. And we ended up coming up with about 74 resources. And at first we said, okay, we have this list. How are we gonna introduce it to the world? And Carrie suggested a website. And so we built a website and launched it without really expecting much. We just thought, you know, we've done this work, we wanna share it with other people. That's the point. But the response that we got was just so surprising. It was really positive, you know, people obviously wanted more. And it was, you know, within those first few days that we launched that we realized, oh, okay, let's go back to the drawing board and, and keep making this better. And we've been running ever since with the idea and, and just adding onto it every chance we can get.

Kyrié (05:49):

Yeah, I think since we, yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, since we started in 2017, we, we haven't ever gotten to a stagnant place. By the time we've finished one website update or one new offering, we already have an idea for another one. So it is a ever evolving beast.

Larry (06:04):

Kier, what got you interested in ageism and what's your special area of interest?

Kyrié (06:12):

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think my first sort of run in with ageism was actually when I was 22 at the dermatologist office, and the dermatologist recommended prophylactic Botox. So, you know, that's getting Botox before you get wrinkles so that you don't ever get them cuz you don't, you know, make the expressions that would cause them. And I was really sick as a kid, which I think lady you'll see also gives me a high level of empathy for your abilities, not matching people's perceptions of you. But I also just didn't really wanna any extra time in a doctor's office. And so that was really the first time that I sort of came up against it. And then thankfully, I actually saw a blog Ashton wrote about a artist in Israel who was making jewelry out of her wrinkles. And it really just flipped my perspective on if her wrinkles could be jewelry.

Kyrié (07:02):

Like why did mine have to be medicated away? And so I feel like that was the first, you know, really personal run-in, I had with, you know, the intersection of ageism and sexism there around women's appearances. And then, you know, went on and lived my life about a decade later. I was in grad school and I was working as a therapist with folks in long-term care living with dementia. And I realized there too that the, the people I was working with didn't match up to the stereotypes I held. And that that was a really toxic form of ageism and ableism intersecting. And that's when I started talking and teaching about this. Cause I was like, well, if I just didn't realize it, maybe other people just haven't realized it. And I'm still sort of on that quest. So that's definitely my, my way in is around that intersection of ageism and ableism that happens with dementia. I feel like there's so much we can learn from the experience of dementia with. Also, I think I also have a healthy dose of, as Ryan calls themselves an old person in training, I call myself a crone in training. So I think particularly that intersection of ageism and sexism, we, we need to train to become the Crohn's that this world needs. <Laugh>.

Larry (08:11):

And Ryan, same question to you.

Ryan (08:14):

Sure. So what got me involved was when I was in my early twenties I looked around and I realized that my friend group was made up completely of people my own age. And that sort of started me on this quest to figure out why. And when I started to do that, I kind of fell into this way of thinking about the world where I saw that there was just a lot of segregation between ages and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why that was. So I decided that when I went to college that I would study gerontology and when I started study gerontology at York College in my first jro class they talked about ageism. And so it was then that I started to sort of see so much ageism around me and so much ageism that I experienced growing up, not as a younger person, but I mean obviously as a younger person, but ageism against older people that I basically perpetuated.

Ryan (09:23):

And was also I would say in some ways a, a victim of being that I didn't get to spend as much time with my grandparents as I could have because I was focused on, you know, other things. And, and looking back, I I really regret that time that I missed with them. And just the time that I missed with, you know, other people, older people in my community that I sort of it was, it did, I realized that it was a disservice to me to, to have not had more time with them. And so that really started to get the ball rolling. It was that first semester, 10 years ago that I went to see Ashton's speak. And I, you know, really started to deeply think about aging ageism. And it, it, it's just been something that I've been working on ever since.

Larry (10:16):

Ageism seems to be a more acceptable form of bigotry than, than racism or antisemitism. Why do you think that is?

Ryan (10:30):

Well, I'll jump in and say that. I think maybe, you know, considering our backgrounds, we might think that it's more acceptable. I think there are definitely some parts of the culture where that's not necessarily the case. So that's why it's important to talk about intersectionality when we talk about ageism because obviously it's connected with a lot of other isms, like a lot of other forms of bigotry. I think there is a universal nature of aging that makes it a little bit more murky when we're talking about it. Everyone has an age ageism can be both against younger people and older people. So that, that gets confusing because there's no in-group or outgroup. So it's really, you know, it's not a cut and dry form of bigotry when it comes to thinking about these kinds of things. And then, yeah, obviously, like I said, like we, I I am very hesitant to compare it to other isms in that way where I don't think this should be, you know, a hierarchy of oppressions or anything like that. I think we can talk about the harms that ageism does on its own without necessarily comparing it to other isms. And then we can also talk the about the ways that all of these oppressions work together as a person ages to, to basically yeah, take away privilege and and opportunity for so many.

Larry (12:02):

Kier, do you have anything to add or,

Kyrié (12:07):

I think Ryan hit most of the points. So this is something I will just say. This is something that the three of us, Ashton, Ryan, and myself, are in conversation about a lot cuz age is so different than, you know, the other identity factors. With the big bigotry centers around in that exactly as Ryan said, just highlighted the fact that we all have an age and we're all experiencing age bias and aids privilege every day of our life. And so it really is, we like to talk about it of, I think what's something that's really powerful about age as far as undoing bigotry, is that for folks who have experienced a lot of privilege in other parts of their identity, it might be the first form that they're gonna experience of any kind of negative bias. And so I like to call it a little bit of like a gateway ism, if you will.

Kyrié (12:57):

You can really build empathy that way. We, we all have the experience as a child, you know, being told we can't do something that we knew we were capable of. Many of us had the experience of not being taken seriously in the workforce because of our age. You know, or getting older, especially for people who didn't have those experiences. By the time you're getting older, there's those experiences of ageism. And when we can tap into how that feels in our own self, it can help build empathy for these other forms of bigotry and can help us, you know, sort of raise awareness of why they're harmful and what to do about them. But I think it is just age compounds with all of them. And then even thinking about the fact of how much if you've experienced other forms of oppression throughout your life, it shortens your lifespan. You know, ageism shortens their lifespan as well, but so does, you know, so do so many of these other forms of oppression and I think that's a really important part of the conversation of, to be able to grow older is not an opportunity that everyone has.

Larry (13:59):

Where do you find ageism being most prevalent in the older group or in the younger group, or pretty equal?

Kyrié (14:18):

That's a good question. I mean, that's, you know, it's interesting when you think about where it's more prevalent. I think there's definitely something to be said for the longer you've been exposed to ageist messaging without being aware of it and undoing it, the more bias you're gonna have. Now that, I can't say if that's older or younger, cuz there are plenty of older people who've been aware of ageism, you know, since the time of Robert Butler that have done a lot of their own work undoing bias. And there's a lot of younger people who aren't aware of their ageism, right? So I'm not gonna be able to put it on a timeline there, but I I would say you definitely had more opportunity to absorb ageism the longer you've been on the planet. But we really see it everywhere, especially even, you know, what's so interesting about too is the ageism, internalized ageism. So ideas that we have of what we can or can't do because of our own age makes it really hard to sort of uncover and get sticky. But I think, I mean, you really can see it everywhere in the workplace. It's really damaging. As far as like building communities, it's really damaging. Definitely see it in the media. I would say it's pretty universal. I don't know, Ryan, what do you think?

Ryan (15:23):

Yeah, and I, I think obviously like for women it's a lot harder. And so when you have younger women who think, you know that their lives are over because they reached a certain age, whether that's, you know, 25 or 35, you know, it happens at, at sort of every life stage people start to, you know, bemoan the, the the experience of growing older. And that's, that's definitely ageism. It's embedded in, in every stage of our culture. So I think comparing, you know, ageism against younger people or ageism against older people is, you know, we can talk about how media represents younger and older people or how institutions treat younger and older people. But I think also just talking about how people treat themselves based on their own age across that lifespan is also really important. But I think, you know, you could consider the, the, you know, legal age limit of being 18 or, you know, I have friends who rent U-Haul when they're in their early twenties because of the whole rule, the law around not being able to rent a car at 25 until, unless you're 25 under 25.

Ryan (16:40):

So it's, you know, it's, it's this you know, it's the way that society is structured that at every age there are limitations whether it be social, whether it be legal and so yeah, part of undoing ageism is questioning why that is, why do those limitations exist? Is it because of age or is it because of some other limitation that, that we need to look at? So it's really really important too that we bring that up.

Larry (17:11):

Do you find that people in my generation are the worst offenders of ageism? Do we do it to ourselves?

Kyrié (17:23):

Those are two different questions. So the, the answer that well, like the answer to the first question is, you'll notice with us, we think about this stuff a lot and it's very, very nuanced, so there's no good soundbite answer for this. We, I know Ryan shares this viewpoint, so does Ashton's written very eloquently about it, that we find generational labeling to be ageist in and of itself to assume that, you know, a whole cohort of people because of their birth year share some sort of similar overarching, you know, that's you can see where it's problematic in the okay. Boomer phrase to assume that everyone in the boomer generation doesn't care about the planet, even though many of them were there starting, the environmentalism movement sort of shows where this generational labeling can get trapped. So I'll say too, like we, Ryan, or I wouldn't even refer to people in your generation as a thing. But the second question of do we do it to ourselves? I think absolutely. And the, we can see that again, the longer that we've been unconscious to all of the ages, messages that we are absorbing, the more ageist we are going to be. So therefore, the older you are, the more opportunity you have to be ageist. I would say that doesn't mean that all olders are interested.

Larry (18:38):

I I think rephrasing that do people in my generation behave like we think we should behave rather than the way we really are.

Ryan (18:57):

That's really, that's a tricky question. I don't know if I could answer that. What's coming up for me, of course is, is just the, I'm gonna assume your age here and just the, the, the cultural movement, you know, that happened in the sixties and seventies around youth. You know, I think it was a huge movement that was centering youth. And, you know, a phrase that my dad, you know, I heard my dad say all the time was that he knows from that time was, you know, don't trust anyone over 30. You know, it was like a common way to talk about older people back then. And I think, you know, part of, part of the work that I wanna do is changing this idea for younger people, changing the the inherited attitude that that younger people have about older people. Now have older people inherited a way of talking about younger people that's negative as well, probably, I don't know if I'm the right person or, or you know, if younger people are the, the right people to sort of change that way of thinking.

Ryan (20:02):

I think, you know, from the history, from, from, from early history, there's always been sort of a many, many assumptions made about groups of people based on them being young or old. I think, you know, part of our work is to, is to challenge that, but also I think there are yeah, there are opportunities to really question, you know, why, why are we operating in this way? Why, you know, what, what, where are those o where are there opportunities to really connect across different ages and, and start to, to realize that like, yeah, we all have a life course. You know, we all have this privilege of aging. So what, you know, what are, what are we gonna do about it? Are we gonna be su super negative about it? Maybe some people will be, but chances are they're negative about everything else in their life, you know? And will some people be really positive about it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Will some people be realists? Absolutely. So I think, I don't think we can yeah, make blanket statements about entire groups of people based on when they were born when it comes to this. It's just a matter of maybe changes that happen across the, the lifespan and, and whether or not those changes are significant enough to like actual actually make stereotypes and generalizations about, or if there's something deeper within that,

Kyrié (21:32):

I think to just sort of add onto that. So I do feel like maybe answering a little bit more of your question coming out from a different angle is there are a lot of age ageist ideas that we have that cause real damage for olders. So even the idea of you can't teach an old dog new tricks you know, that sort of ages saying is really damaging when if we internalize it and think that there is an age after which we can't learn or change or grow and that's not backed up by science, both our, our minds we can continue to learn throughout our entire life and even our bodies. We can continue to gain muscle mass and strength. We can get stronger until the very, very, very end of our lives. And there's a colleague of ours, David Wilson, who's at on Instagram, he's a personal trainer and he's at old cool moves.

Kyrié (22:25):

So it's like old is cool moves, it's very similar to our name. But he talks all the time about this principle in personal training called the said principle, which basically means that our bodies adapt to what we ask them to do. So if we're sitting a lot, our bodies get better at sitting, but that means that they get worse at standing and at moving laterally. And, and so this, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. The idea of older people are meant to be sedentary or meant to be in the rocking chair. These were the ageist stereotypes cause real physical and mental harm when we believe them. And then don't ask our body to move in ways that we want to don't continue you know, to develop muscle mass and to move in ways that are healthy and for both our brain and our body. So I think maybe that's pointing a little bit more at what you were thinking about Larry too, is when we have that internalized ageism, it, it really can dramatically affect our quality of life and the length of our life.

Larry (23:22):

Some of the new research is shown to become cognitively fit. You must teach old dogs new tricks. You must stress yourself to learn something that you've never known how to do.

Kyrié (23:40):

Yeah. The same is for cognition and for falling. So if you're trying to do fall prevention, one of the best things you can do is learn to move in a way that you've never moved before. You know, so if you've never done Tai chi, do tai chi. If you've never done, you know, a certain kind of dance, do that, like that again, that getting your body and your mind to work new neural pathways, new ways of moving yeah, is really protective. And, and again, that you can't teach old dogs new tricks gets right in the way of us thinking that that's possible.

Larry (24:09):

Let's get talking about the old school website first. What is the web address? How can people find you?

Ryan (24:21):

So it's old school.info, so www dot old school s c h o o l l o o l info i n ffo.

Larry (24:33):

I've been to the site. There is so much information there. Where does one begin? What's the starting

Ryan (24:45):

Point? Yeah, we've grown. So we started off with 74 resources and we're at the point where we have over 400 now. So yeah, definitely easy to get lost in. So we realized this and we added a new feature recently. So if you go to the main page in the top right hand corner, there's a button that says new here, click me so curer can show you. And so that says new here, click me so curer can show you mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so you go to that and you can see some tips for navigating the site. And then below that we have some some, yeah, some different lists of resources that we've compiled depending on, you know, what you are interested in learning about or or in what form? So there's tools reports and papers, books and blogs, campaigns, talks, videos, organizations, podcasts. And then our newest section is the events. So

Larry (25:54):

Can you briefly describe what's in each of the sections?

Ryan (26:00):

Sure. So each section has I don't know, I'd say around like average maybe 30 resources. Some have more, some have less. And yeah, some of them have descriptions at the top that explain exactly what they provide for tools. That's our, our broadest category. So anything you know, it's, it's far ranging. So we have anything from poems to guides that people can use to the workshops that we create. The d i y workshops that anyone can go on and, and present, we have different we have really unique, the th the thing about aging and, and talking about ageism is that it's really everyone's affected by it. And so, you know, we have all of these different ways to, to look at this topic. So for instance, I see right now growing up and growing older books for young readers or we have, you know, ways to talk about ageism in relation to health or in relation to being a woman.

Ryan (27:13):

So there's really just different resources for each one. And then as you can see there's a resource page for each one with a description and ways to share it. And then below there's similar resources, whether it's the same resource creator that made all these resources or whether they're similar, you know, we have a lot of different languages. So we have Spanish resources that, you know, you can go to and, and see all the different Spanish, other Spanish resources in the don't miss section. The difference between talks and videos is that talks is, you know, since C O V I D we've had a lot of a lot of different presentations online. So a lot of these are online, some are in person. So yeah, there's different TED talks. There's just different really great presentations on a, a, a ton of different topics.

Ryan (28:15):

And then the video section is more animation, more edited, short films really diving deep into what ageism looks like. Some of them are actually really creative. Some of them are shorter, some are longer. A world for all ages is a really good one. It's a, a short one put out by the World Health Organization within the past few years that's, that really hits home. And as you can see, you know, we have contact information for a lot of the different resource creators also that we provide. And then some of the resources have even longer descriptions based on whether sometimes we have pages for individuals. Sometimes we have yeah, pages, sometimes even, you know, people don't really have anything else on the web other than their resource that they're providing to old school.

Ryan (29:16):

So we can use the description section to say a bit more about them and why they're doing the work that they do. Yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a lot, you know, like I said, there's all together, there's over 400 resources now, so it's, it's growing. We've had to, to weed some out over the years. Either they've been taken down or they've been you know, our criteria kind of narrowed over the years, so we've taken them out because of that. And then you can see, yeah, on the homepage we have all the brand new resources every month or sometimes every few months, depending on how many we get that we share Right on the, on the homepage.

Larry (30:03):

And you have some live events coming up?

Ryan (30:06):

Yeah, we, every week we have office hours, which is a really great opportunity for anyone to join us. Who wants to talk about ageism? It's very casual. Like, yeah, it says here Wednesday, every Wednesday one 30 Eastern time. Usually the three of us, the co-founders are, are on the call and we, you know, explore topics that are different every week. You know, the, the community comes and, and we really let the, the participants decide what they wanna talk about and what direction they wanna take. The, the, the meeting to we try to focus on, we try, because there's so many great resources on old school, we also tend to sometimes highlight a resource at the beginning of the call. And then at the end of the call we usually ask if there are any community announcements, if there's anything that anyone wants to promote that they're doing in the next week or, or coming weeks.

Larry (31:09):

And that is on Zoom and open to the public.

Ryan (31:12):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Larry (31:15):

Is there a link where people who are interested?

Ryan (31:19):

Yeah, so you can go to contact and then at the bottom the link to to join is there to register for the Zoom call.

Larry (31:32):

There certainly is a lot of information there.

Ryan (31:35):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely a labor of love.

Larry (31:40):

As older adults, we, we tend to get stereotyped sweetie. Honey age is just the number 90 years young golden years, and my absolute favorite. You'll enjoy using the jitterbug flip two, our easiest cell phone ever. All ageist comments. How can we as individuals do something about this?

Kyrié (32:14):

Yeah, yeah. You know, when we're talking about any kind of change we wanna make, the first step is always awareness. So right now, listening to us have this conversation is doing something about it. You know, that's the first step is coming up with your own awareness. And then you know, especially a lot of those that you mentioned are the, the ageist compliments, and they're meant, you know, sometimes really well, you look great for your age, you know, that's meant as a compliment or they're meant to be funny. You know, but it, it reinforces these ages stereotypes, which we've already talked about the problematic nature of. And so in our workshop, let's dismantle ageism, which as Ryan mentioned, there's a free d i y kit, you can give the workshop yourself. And we give it as well, but we have in there three strategies for responding to, to the Ageist compliments.

Kyrié (33:08):

And so I'll share those briefly and, and we really suggest practicing them with, you know, a friend or a loved one because we've all had that experience. If someone says something to us and then we are like, oh man, I really wish I'd had the right response in the moment, you know, at 4:00 AM we come up with the right thing, we wish we'd said back. So it can be really helpful to practice our responses. So, all right, we're noticing that ageism that's coming up for ourselves, right? We're raising our own awareness. Then step two kind of is when you're out in the world calling you know, naming ageism when you see it, and in a kind way that helps raise everyone's awareness. So the first sort of strategy we'll offer is anytime someone uses the term young or old or you know, sweetie or you look great for your age, one way you can respond is just with genuine curiosity.

Kyrié (33:53):

Asking them what do they mean? So I've had great conversations come up when someone says they're too old for something, and I just genuinely like, get a look of really true curiosity. Like, what do you mean too old? And then a conversation starts, and usually they mean something different. And a lot of times I feel like this has come up in the context of physical activities. And they mean like, I don't wanna risk hurting myself doing this today cuz I wanna be able to do it tomorrow. You know, I don't wanna do something that is, that is too risky. Or if it's, you know, I'm too old or young for that haircut, then we can have a conversation around why the haircuts have ages. And as that say, look, you wanna get the haircut, get the haircut, you know, kind of, we can celebrate that together.

Kyrié (34:31):

So that strategy number one is just ask, what do you mean strategy number two? I would say is responding, sort of repeating it back with humor. So, oh sweetie, let me help you with that. Oh, thanks sweetie. I'm okay. It's gonna just put the person going, oh yeah, why did I call them sweetie? They're not my, I'm not their sweetie, they're not my sweetie. We're gonna realize that that's elder speak. It's actually demeaning and infantilizing. It just sort of brings up that awareness, but in a way that's common, gentle or responding with pride is the last one. So if someone says like, you know, oh, don't worry about this birthday sixties, the new 40. Be like, no, actually 60 60. And I'm proud of all 60 orbits around the song that I've done. So those are three, you know, so starting to, to name it when you see it and again in a, we talk about calling in versus calling out in a way that invites conversation, not that starts shame cuz shame's gonna stop learning. And I would say those are two really great steps just raising your own awareness and starting to talk about in the world. And then come get plugged into old school. We have a bunch more things you could do. This is a, a question that we could go on answering for hours, probably of all the stuff you could do.

Larry (35:37):

So what do you want my audience, the listeners to know about supporting the old school and its work?

Ryan (35:49):

Sure. So we have a support link at the top of every page which will bring you to a different page where of course you can donate if you have any extra funds and you wanna support our cause definitely you can do that. Any contribution helps. And then we also, like Carrie said, we offer workshops. So that's a lot of the, the way that we fund old school is through these workshop offerings. So at that same support link you can access a, a pdf that will explain all the different workshops that we can do. And we can also cater certain workshops on certain topics for sure. You could hire us to speak you could hire us to consult and we also have the give us input link. We'll take you to a report card going along with the school theme that will allow you to give your feedback about what you want to see more of on the site, what you like that we're already doing. And then you could also, you know, submit a resource. We're always looking for more resources to add to the site. We especially love it when people are willing to create resources with the intention of having it up on old school. And we also love to help collaborate in that way and, and we really are drawn to projects big and small when it comes to, to creating new anti anti ageism resources. Just gonna,

Kyrié (37:27):

I was just gonna say yeah, just sort of double clicking on what Ryan said too of, you know, our whole, the goal of old school is to catalyze, you know, the movement to end ageism by providing free curated resources. So it's both like, we wanna foster movement building and provide those resources. And so just using the resources is a great way to support old school and we really are committed to providing a lot of stuff like the office hours and whatnot for free. And so if you do have an org that wants a workshop, as Ryan was sort of saying, one of the major ways that we fund being able to, you know, pay collaborators and keep the website up and whatnot is through getting paid to give the workshops and then if, but if your org doesn't have the money for it too, like we said, they're d i y kits, so they're free. So we're constantly trying to sort of toe this line of we want all the resources to be out there and accessible. And then also trying to stay

Larry (38:18):

Secure. Is there anything we miss?

Ryan (38:20):

I think the last thing that I'd like to say is going back to your question about how individuals can combat ageism, and I think the easiest way is probably something that folks are already doing and that's just spending time with people of different ages. So when we spend time with people of different ages, it starts to sort of undo those biases that we have about you know, different ages and, and our own aging process. You know, if you have a 50 year old complaining about getting older and how their life is over because they just reach that big milestone, maybe they should hang out with an 85 year old and see where they're at. Mm-Hmm. So I really want to, to definitely support this idea of bringing all ages together. Like I said before, we do live in a very age segregated society, so I think just breaking down those barriers is so important and talking about it in that way.

Ryan (39:16):

So we are oftentimes in mixed age spaces and that doesn't get talked about as a diversity factor. So I think, you know, one of my easiest hacks is any time I'm in a space with a people of, of different ages, I bring that into the space. I say I'm really grateful for the fact that we did gather so many people of different ages or, you know, if there is some sort of demographic, demographic or or age group that's missing, I'll call that into the room as well. And I'll start, I'll question, you know, well, I wonder why there's not more younger people, or, oh, I wonder why there's only younger people involved. So I think that's just, you know, an easy way to really to, to really yeah. Combat ageism.

Larry (40:05):

Well, thank you both for being on specifically for seniors. It's been a pleasure, informative, and I think our listeners are gonna get a lot out of it. Thanks again, guys.

Speaker 5 (40:23):

Thanks for having

Ryan (40:23):

Us. Thank you so much.

Announcer (40:27):

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