Age

Age

Adult learners are coming from all different backgrounds with all different experiences, so therefore, the Instructor should have similar amounts of experiences as well. The Instructor should be able to get on the level of most of his or her students.

There are two ways to approach this characteristic. Young learners who have older adult teachers - tend to think that they are not understanding today's students and technology. Older Adult learners tend to think that young teachers haven't experienced life enough or have the educational background to teach them. Although students should make the assumption their teacher is qualified to educate them until he has proven he/she can not. My American History Teacher was 86 years old and actually lived a good portion of the history he was teaching. I had no problem with his lectures; however, the younger students wanted to watch movies on history instead of getting it from the professor. Age is a barrier for some, to teach, as well as for young learners who assume too early about their educator. Age should only be a factor when the educator can't effectively educate to his/her students. 'Al Cordera'