MEMBERS OF THE OLD SCHOOL : Adults Are Going Back to Class, Too, to Learn About Everything From Sailing to Computers

“Whoso neglects learning in his youth,” wrote the Greek playwright Euripides, “loses the past and is dead for the future.”

And how about this, written by Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams? “Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.”

Perhaps if I had paid more attention to my own studies, I could pluck such pearls of wisdom from my memory. As it is, I’ve had to look up “learning” in the index of Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations” to come up with a pithy line or two and simulate erudition.

Such is the fate, I fear, of most products of our educational system. The focus is on that piece of paper held out like a prize at the end of our tenure in high school or college; information (knowledge is too kind a word) is something we retain only long enough to get through the next test.

Luckily, learning doesn’t have to stop once the official “schooling” ends. A survey of Orange County’s universities and community colleges shows a wide variety of ways for adults to keep learning--Euripides be damned. At most locations, the next session of classes gets underway in the next couple of weeks.

The range of offerings is wide, from technical courses to “personal growth” seminars, from sailing to cooking to the history of American war films. Professional training and enhancement programs are a staple, especially at a time when many people in the defense industries are either trying to solidify their grip on an old job or are looking to find a new one.

One of the newest certificate programs offered through Cal State Fullerton’s extension program is in the new field of object-oriented computer programming. Harry Norman, dean of extended education for the university, admits with a laugh that he’s still not quite sure what object-oriented programming is, but he notes that it has been extremely popular and is just the kind of cutting-edge program he hopes to continue developing.

“We’ve had people go through (the program) and save their jobs,” said Norman. “That’s happening in a number of areas.”

Professional training programs at local colleges and universities also include real estate, medical fields, criminal justice, transportation, hazardous-waste management--the list is extensive. Other practically oriented classes are a variety of personal finance classes and language programs, including plenty of ESL classes for the recently arrived and foreign languages (particularly Spanish, French, German and Japanese).

On the other side of the coin are classes designed specifically for personal enjoyment or enrichment. Recreation classes offered at the community colleges include yoga, aerobics, self-defense and dance--lots of dance. Saddleback College, for example, offers country line dancing, country two-step, swing (East Coast and West Coast), nightclub freestyle, New York hustle, “Funtango,” rumba, waltz and a general “social dancing” class.

Probably the most extensive college recreation program in the county is the Orange Coast College Sailing Center in Newport Beach, which offers courses to students enrolled in the college and to the public. Beginning sailors learn on 14-foot dinghies; students who stick with the program can graduate all the way to the Alaska Eagle, a 47-foot sailing yacht.

“We have extremely knowledgeable instructors. Most of us have at least crossed an ocean or done some major sailing,” said Karen Prioleau, the center’s instructor coordinator. “We have at least 3,000 people come through a year. . . . It’s a pretty unusual facility in that we have a lot of different types of boats. We take the neophyte to the experienced (sailor).”

Beginning sailing classes are taught over five four-hour weekend lessons (Saturday or Sunday), with new sessions beginning every month. The range of courses graduates to classes and seminars in such advanced topics as offshore navigation, sailmaking, yacht design and marine weather.

Students in the beginning classes vary in motivation. “A lot of people use it for a social event, a way to meet people,” Prioleau said. Others are more serious about seamanship and move on to the more advanced classes: “They’ve come through as beginners and now they’re cruising.”

The social aspect of adult education is directly addressed in numerous seminars offered through the community colleges. Some address general speaking and social skills (“How to Talk to Practically Anybody” is one offering at Rancho Santiago College) while others go straight to dating and relationship problems and strategies (“Men, Sex and Intimacy” is the title of one seminar at Saddleback College).

There are a wide range of classes on parenting, on arts and crafts (Golden West College offers classes on everything from Depression rag dolls to batik), on cooking (“The Art of Biscotti” at UC Irvine extension) and on gardening and interior decorating.

One of the more unusual certificate programs offered through Cal State Fullerton’s extension program is a series of classes on magic, starting with close-up magic performed with coins, cards and other small objects, and graduating to larger stage effects (all three classes can be taken within a single semester).

The classes are taught by David Thorsen, who was the university’s choral conductor from its opening until his semi-retirement two years ago. He continues to teach part time in the university’s music department, in addition to teaching his magic classes, which are now in their fourth year.

“It’s really interesting. I’ve had an Episcopal minister, a gynecologist, a number of lawyers, professional clowns, dentists, engineers,” said Thorsen. The unifying thread, he said, is that all of his students “always wanted to learn something about magic when they were kids.”

Thorsen has been performing since childhood and has been a professional magician for 35 years, performing at private parties and other functions regularly. Thorsen believes that in addition to learning the skills of magic, many of his students come away with a greater sense of confidence.

“I feel that that’s part of it,” he said. “Some of them have never stood in front of an audience before. (Magic) allows them to stand in front of a group and have something to say and to have something to hold on to.”

One area that has been generally lacking in Orange County, at least in contrast with such programs as UCLA Extension, is innovative and provocative arts and humanities curricula for returning students. That appears to be changing, to some degree at Cal State Fullerton but especially at UC Irvine.

Nancy E. Warzer, director of arts and humanities at UC Irvine extension, has been working to expand the offerings there and also to change the format for continuing education. In the last year, the school has started six-week, non-credit “mini-terms” that do not require the time commitment of a full quarter-long course.

“We’re in a budget crunch, that’s for certain, but I think we’ve really found a market for continued lifelong learning,” Warzer said. Some extension classes are offered during the day, a departure from the usual evenings-and-weekends extension schedules. “We are attracting people who work different hours, who are unemployed, fresh-out-of-college grads who haven’t the vaguest idea of what they want to do with their lives.”

Unlike regular university classes, extension and adult education classes at universities and colleges cannot receive state aid, so they must support themselves through enrollment. And because they don’t have to be there, adult students “vote with their feet,” Warzer said. So, the university’s stab at offering a wider range of more specialized classes is somewhat experimental.

Offerings in the fall quarter at UCI include courses in the history of surrealism, a holography workshop, a drama workshop in Shakespeare and a survey of the archeology of China, in addition to a series of weekend seminars in Western philosophy.

“Nancy Warzer has been really great. She’s very interested in new ideas,” said Martha Fuller, a writer and photographer and one of the teachers in the program. “While the how-to classes tend to do well, especially in tight budgetary times, the arts and humanities are always enriching, a lot more so than a lot of people give them credit for.”

Courses Fuller will teach this quarter include “Contemporary American Art: New Forms After 1960,” “Reading Margaret Atwood” and “Voices and Visions of Women: A Multicultural Perspective.” Her students in past classes at UC Irvine have been highly motivated, she said.

“The students I’ve had so far, all of them have been very rewarding,” she said. “They all want to be there, very much so.”

Screenwriter Frank McAdams is teaching a course titled “The Evolution of American War Film: 1942 to Present.” The class is “more of an experiment,” said McAdams, who is writing a history of American war films. “I’m trying a triangle approach,” involving film theory, American history and sociology.

“I’m teaching that the films do reflect the political and social connections of the time,” he said. “The way that we (as a nation) changed, through the war film genre, really started being reflected in 1942.”

Such an interdisciplinary approach is reflected in a history of rock ‘n’ roll class being taught by Christy Coobatis. He is also teaching an electronic music class. “They’re courses that adults can participate in, where it’s more of a lifestyle than just going to a course to absorb facts,” Coobatis said. “Everyone is exposed to rock, but we go from the Civil War to MTV.”

At community colleges, all courses are open to anyone, including credit classes offered outside the adult education and community services departments. The cost is $50 per unit for students who already have a bachelor’s degree. Adult classes can range from about $25 for a single meeting to $150 for a full three-unit class.

At UC Irvine, most mini-courses cost $85 to $155, while 10-week courses generally cost $185. At Cal State Fullerton, prices range from $65 for a one-day seminar to $160 for a six-week course.

Students who are not enrolled in either Cal State Fullerton or UC Irvine can take regular university classes through adjunct enrollment (at Fullerton) or concurrent enrollment (at Irvine), provided there is space in the class after regular university students have signed up.