>> richard whitmire examines former washington, d.c. school chancellor michelle rhee and her three-year effort to reform the school system. this event is 0 minutes. -- 40 minutes. >> the question that i get asked the most about this book is how did i get started on this. and it is kind of an interesting story because i had finished a

book, and i knew if i was going to write another book, that it shouldn't be another issue book because they're just -- people love issue books, but they don't actually buy that many issue books. [laughter] no, so i want today write one with a narrative, a reason to turn the page. so my wife robin and i were out biking, and i was day dreaming and falling behind her by about 50 yards, and all of a sudden i realized i know somebody who could carry a whole book with a narrative. and, of course, that's how i ended up asking michelle for permission, you know, to cooperate in some way for the book. and that's a process that took, oh, about two months. [laughter] but she eventually began to -- she gave me some access here, enough, obviously, to do the book which was great, and it was great working with her. everyone also asks me what's my favorite michelle story, if you will. the preface leads off with a michelle story about going to the tailor, so i won't go into that one, but there's another

one i love that's buried in there that you might miss. when the girl, when the daughters were much younger, kevin and michelle living in toledo went to the original pancake house for, you know, for a special meal, and there's always a big line there. and sure enough, there was a line there this time. is this creating the echo? [laughter] and so they're standing in this line, the problem were there were open tables, and there was staff i milling around. so as kevin tells the story, michelle checks it out, and she walks up behind the mate red desk and back, and then finally she just walks behind the desk and says, okay, you. for two, over here. of she dispatched the whole thing, you know? laugh and, like, the funnest thing, the staff at the restaurant were grateful that somebody knew what they were doing. [laughter] so that's my sort of favorite michelle story, and i'm going to wrap up because i know q&a's far

more interesting than listening to me. so the significance of the book is that my gut instinct in starting the book was that michelle would be tackling the core issues that we're going to be seeing playing out in states and school districts in the coming years. and, you know, i'd like to say some genius on my part. it was probably accidental. but, informs, that is happening. if you look at the teachers' contract just agreed to in wisconsin, colorado, new jersey, florida, nevada, new york, in all those places if you look at the reforms that are proposed or just starting to actually see how they played out on the ground would be washington d.c. of course, some politicians will look at what happened here and say why would we do that? the mayor lost his job, and michelle lost her job. and to those who would say that i would say, you know, you've got a good point there. so why, why would anyone do that? you know, a couple of reasons. there's a whole group of

politicians who believe that, you know, something that i've done michelle-like as possible where, you know, you can do the same kind of reforms only you smile more when you're doing them, and you're more collaborative. are they right? i think it depends on the school district, you know? a mid-functioning school district probably could do that. but, unfortunately, there are a lot of school districts, too many school districts with the same profile as d.c., and i don't think you can get away with it. there's another way of answering this question because i recall asking this of kevin johnson. i thought, you know, here's a politician who's also e immersed in education issues and went door to door campaigning for fenty, and i said why would anyone reach out for a michelle rhee kind of potential considering what happened? and he said, you know, people like us are so desperate to make a department, some kind -- dent,

some kind of improvement. so it is going to happen. he offered as proof this avalanche of offers that came to michelle after she stepped down. so i think kevin's right. these reforms are going to be tried again and again and not just michelle-like versions. so now i'm going to pass it to michelle who amazed me by agreeing to talk about her relations with the press. [laughter] probably her least favorite topic. but considering this is organized by education writers' association, she played along as a good sport. so turn it over to you. >> my relations with the press. [laughter] um, i think my relationship with the press was complicated. let me say the first time a lot of very good things happened because of the press attention that we got. with the efforts that we were putting fort.

forth. i was really surprised, to tell you the truth, when i started the job and that there was so much interest in what we were doing. at first, you know, i would often go out to dinner with richard and sean, and we'd sort of talk about how strange it was, and at first i really thought it was because the visual was so stark, right? here's this korean-american woman who is young, who has never run a school much less a school district, and now she's taken on, you know, this job in mostly an affluent american city. i thought that was sort of what was driving the interest in the news, and i thought that it would dissipate over time. and try as we might, it did not happen. and it just seemed like the press interest and the intensity actually increased over time. and i remember having dinner one night with a journalist here in

the city, and i sort of was lamenting we had this particularly challenging press day that day, and i said i don't get it. i mean, if there's a fight in the cafeteria at some high school in new york city, i can guarantee you that "the new york times" is not covering that. but what's going on in washington? every single thing that's happening, and i don't get it. and he looked at me, and he said, i can tell you why there's so much interest. he said it's because you give good quote. [laughter] he said, you say the things that we know people are probably thinking in their heads, but they're trained to do better, right? to stick to the talking points, and you actually say those things. [laughter] you say that there are some teachers who are not so good and need to, you know, be removed. and is so that's why the press loves you, because you will say those things. so i thought that was interesting. i will say this, the -- i don't

know if i'm allowed to say this or not, but i'm going to say it. [laughter] as per usual. [laughter] i, i think that there were people in the media who were extraordinarily helpful to us in this effort. and i honestly don't think that we could have done the work that we, that we did without some of the media actually backing us 100% of the way and then things kind of spiraled out of control with what people were thinking and what the blogs were saying, sort of the voice of reason, and i couldn't trade that for or wouldn't trade that for anything because there was a venue for which there was this constant and consistent voice saying, you know, this is the right thing, sometimes i said the wrong thing, but mostly it was right. that was extraordinarily helpful to the effort. i also, though l tell you that

we -- will tell you that we made a ton of mistakes when it came to the media. it's funny because starting from very early on in my tenure people would make comments to either me or my staff saying you guys have the best pr machine ever. i mean, you're getting on, you know, you're getting covered by all of these major national news outlets, i mean, there's this mastermind behind it, and little did they know it was just a bunch of 24-year-olds running around. we had no idea what we were doing, we didn't really have the press shot per se, and people thought it was the rhee pr press machine. no, it was the lack thereof actually. and we, i think very naively, thought we're going to put our heads down, work hard, do the right thing, and then we're going to produce results. and that is really what matters. just make sure we focus on the right things and we're producing

results. and i think that we very much underestimated the power that the media would have in shaping the message. and so what we ended up with was a situation where the teachers were sort of -- they were getting messages, and they were reading things, you know, in the newspaper or on the blogs, and they were getting the sort of message and the communications shaped in this their head, and we -- this is our fault on this -- we did not do our part to sort of send a different message proactively. and so we thought, oh, some of those things that people are saying, they're nuts, nobody's going to believe that. but in the absence of us putting anything different out, it actually stuck in people's heads and sort of became the narrative. and that's where we really fell down in all of this. and be interestingly enough, there are some people from tntb here.

they will remember back in the day long before i was chancellor, we would say to superintendents do not abty gate the communication directly to teachers to the union. you have to be directly communicating with your teachers, and then after we took over the school district, we just fell in those same traps, and we didn't do that. so i would say that my sort of -- i i think our biggest challenge and my biggest he lesn learn inside all of this has to do with that communication specifically to the teachers. not necessarily, you know, the rest of the public, you know, you're going to take what you take and what not, but what really did not serve us well was the fact that beweren't directly communicating with teachers. so complicated stuff, like i said, both good and bad. i would absolutely say that because of the national attention that we got for the effort we, we got a lot of

support. i don't think we ever would have gotten the $65 million in foundation support for the efforts that we were embarked on from national organizations unless they believed that what we were doing here was going to have a national impact. and that would not have happened were it not for the press and media that were involved in the effort. so i'd say good, not so good. on the not so good side there was just a lot we could have done better. >> thank you. before we turn it over to questions, i was hoping to get michelle to answer one more thing on this issue because i thought that we had such an interesting conversation about the whole "time" cover. that, by the way, back there is the back-up "time" cover, the one -- >> the one they were supposed to use. >> as opposed to the one with the broom. and i think, what were you thinking,? what, by hindsight, what would have made a difference, you know? what if anita gunn has been with

you to say, no, you may not do this with the broom? i don't know if you just prompt this, you had an interesting answer as to whether or not you thought there should have been a be pr adviser there for that. >> well, so, i like to travel alone. i like to do my own thing, and, you know, people would often when i'd show up some place they'd sort of look around and say where are your staff? and i'd say, they are at the office working where they should be, not following me around. so that was just my thought in all of this is that, i mean, i'm a school district superintendent, i'm not a, you know, movie star, one of these people, i don't need folks following me around, i'm just doing my job. and i will say about the "time" cover even though that's the picture they told me they were going with before three days before it came out, i actually don't regret that cover. i regret that people took it the wrong way. people took it to mean that i

was, you know, somehow demeaning people. that was not it at all. i really saw the broom as a symbol of needing a clean sweep. and, i mean, literally. so sweeping change, needing to clean house, and i don't think that there's anybody that can argue with me about the fact that we absolutely had to have sweeping changes in what we were doing. we could not fritter around the edges and spend another ten years trying to get, you know, ten more percentage point gains for the children in washington d.c. it wasn't good enough for them. >> well, now we'd really like to take questions from all of you either for richard oar for michelle -- or for michelle. anybody up here? >> susan? >> michelle, i can't remember whether it was the few seem

event or "waiting for superman" or somewhere elsewhere you were in a discussion with jeffrey canada, and he made the observation about the fact that many of the people that this change is meant to benefit are opposedded to it. opposed to it. and be how disturbing that is. and i wonder if you could comment on that in terms of the most active parents and community members being -- not grasping the reason for the change? ..

>> keep many mind that sousa is that school in waiting for superman that was one of the worst in the world, essentially, and a lot was at stake in this mayoral election because it was clear if fenty lost that michelle would be gone. al -- it wasn't career during the pri -- clear during the primary at all because it was very harsh attitudes towards reforms.

i thought if this is a school where this community had everything to lose, this would be it, and i was shocked interviewing parents coming out there. they were -- it t all comes back to the firings, actually, that there was huge resentment on the firings, there was almost zero sense among people that i talked to that the firings that took place at souza had anything to do with that school improving dramatically. it was just, i mean, nothing. no connection at all. and i thought that was pretty striking. >> question? >> [inaudible] can you talk a little bit about your process as a writer? obviously, a lot of competing narratives around, you know, your time as chancellor in d.c. ps and just how you chose to include those or balance those and make decisions about what was valid for inclusion in your

book. just how you chose to balance the competing narratives and what you chose -- why you chose to include certain narratives. >> right, it's a great question. you know, my book is only out a week, and already i'm being trashed in a lot of of places, but i knew that i would. you know, you've only got one shot at doing this book, so the question is how are you going to spend your 270 pages? do you always have, you know, opposing views and opposing voices, this kind of thing, or do you set off and you try and answer one big question? and to me the question was, you know, can an urban school district like d.c. be turned around, was this right strategy, was it working and should other school districts follow that strategy? and so although there's a biography in there and, frankly, i think that's the most fun part

of the book is michelle growing up, if the things happened in her life that weren't relevant to answering that question like how did somebody like this come to this position, they got tossed. and, you know, i debated a long time, and i'm really getting criticized for this, why don't you have a chapter interviewing the fired teachers and the impact this had on them? so i think this gets to the heart of your question. and, believe me, i thought about doing that just to avoid the inevitable criticism because if this had been a book about d.c. and the impact on d.c., then i, obviously, would have done that, i but that's not what this book was. this book was, again, you know, was the right strategy chosen, was it working, should other school districts pursue this? essentially, a national question. and so i deliberately, i did not do that. and i thought if i was going to profile teachers, they should be teachers that were brought in that made a difference which is

why we keep talking about the souza chapter here. mainly because it was such a dramatic turn around, and it was done by jordan bringing in effective teachers and not just bringing them in, i mean, jordan was never around. he was always in the classroom telling them how to teach. [laughter] there's a funny story, anecdote in the book. you know, i would arrive sometimes for interviews at souza and there was no jordan. to be out cooling my heels in the outer office, you know, jordan could really care less about me, to put it this way. [laughter] i was not a big priority in his life, you know? his priority was out there in the classrooms. and so i'd have to, like, beg and wheedle my way in to find some teachers. it was really very funny, you know? at first i was kind of fended, but then i realized, you know, he's got one thing on his mind. so anyway, i digress, but that's

why i didn't include those other, you know, the prodder picture, and i have this very narrow narrative, if you will, and i admit to that, and i'll take my lumps on it. but you've o only got 270 pages, so how are you going to use 'em, you know? the. [laughter] >> question for michelle, could this -- [inaudible] have to be invited to your book party. there are a couple of premises in here i don't necessarily agree with on no child left behind and its impact on high schools. i think it was meant to really shake the system, and i think michelle came in and really did challenge that and tried to take that on in the district's high schools. but i would like to know if during your tenure if there have been other school chancellors around the country that had come to you even quietly to ask how they can do what you were doing even if they were maybe afraid to take it on so publicly as you

did? >> we didn't hear the question -- [inaudible] >> you want me to try and repeat it? my question more to michelle, my commentary was did other school chancellors or superintendents or others that were in a position that you were in trying to really shake up the district schools, did anyone come to you even quietly to sort of ask how you were doing it or what, what it was taking for you to have the ability to do what you were doing? even if they didn't want to publicly be known for that? >> the other school district superintendents or chancellors come to michelle and ask her what she was really doing and, uni, what was the method to her, you know, not madness, but -- [laughter] you know, and was that something that they could emulate? so the that the gist of it? if right. okay. >> i had, mostly, people who

were just coming into their jobs who were trying to get a lay of the land and trying to understand, i think, before they really got up and running what the challenges were, why i made the decisions that i made, was i happy with those or not, lots of folks who came to me to ask about school closures. when we closed the 23 schools in d.c., no other district has ever closed anything close to that in one shot. and then avenue we kid it -- after we did it in a number of cities it did occur, so we definitely got a lot of questions about the school closures in particular. >> michelle, what did you think of the arbitrator's decision the day before yesterday? are there lessons to be learned from it, and if it's fair to ask kentucky ya a question, why

haven't you said you're going to repeal it? [laughter] >> i'm happy to answer that question, and i'm so glad because now that i'm not in that job, i can really answer the way i believe. it's a crock. that decision was an absolute crock. if you look at what the arbitrator's doing, he said, yeah, these people were not good, right? and if you look at what we are -- i still say we, can i still say we? we. what we are required to do in order to remove a probationary teacher from their position, what the letter of the law states we absolutely met. what he was saying we did not do which is an explanation of why to the teachers, that's nowhere in the requirements. of what is necessary. so i have no idea what that man was thinking. in fact, we were actually, you know, advised by our counsel, you know, when you have terminations, you actually don't go into long things with people about why and what not.

that, you know, you meet the letter of the law, and that's exactly what happened. so i think that decision was absolutely incorrect. i'm confident that it's, it is appealed and will be turned over. >> other questions? [inaudible] we have a question. elizabeth? >> i have ten. [laughter] i'm curious of the fellow journalists, how do you react to this narrative of your tenure, and what is the one thing that you would have told differently if you were describing it in your own book? [inaudible] >> did everyone hear that? she's saying how did you react to this narrative of your tenure, and how would you -- what's the one thing you would add if you were to be writing the book yourself.

>> [inaudible] that's a really uncomfortable question. [laughter] >> i, let's see, what did i think about the book? i -- [laughter] yeah. >> what is your reaction. [inaudible] [laughter] yeah. what's one thing you would add, a piece of this story? >> what's one thing you would add? >> potentially, and i think that we got a little of this through the souza chapter, but if i were to add anything to this, i would add the voice of kids. i get my energy from children, i love kids. the difference between you and most adults is most adults like their own children but for some reason you like all children. and i do, i like adults far less

than i like kids. [laughter] and so this city is full of children who have so much potential. so much talent. i mean, they are just absolutely amazing kids. and they've never ceased to amaze me whether i was talking to little kindergarteners or my student cabinet who i grew very close with all three years that i was there, and i still get, you know, e-mails from all the time. the children of this city are absolutely phenomenal. and the one thing that i, the one thread that i regret not seeing in this is the voice of at least one student, and what their experiences were over that three-year period and what they saw both from the school side and then maybe also from the community side. i think that would have been, would have been a nice addition. >> richard, do you want to talk about that at all? did you think about that, or the

270 pages -- >> it was hard to keep the 270 pages and partly my long years at "usa today" where we would get lectures from the editors on losing eyeballs. what this means is you watch somebody read a newspaper, and they skip to the next page, you've lost their eyeballs. you've got to that point in the story where they just, they're gone. and when i'm reading, you know, not that many kids -- i understand what you're saying, but i was afraid of losing the eyeballs, you know? they're cuter -- >> let me give you an example. [laughter] richard, richard wrote about souza from, you know, the vantage point of talking about a strong leader coming in and building a strong team which i absolutely agree is one of the key things that can make a turn around either work or not. let me tell you from a slightly different perspective. so when, when principal jordan first came in, i started hearing from my staff that things were really turning around.

and i had been there my first year, and it was an absolute disaster. and so it was literally one of the most dysfunctional schools that we had. true to "the washington post" calling it an academic sink hole. i started hearing things very early on in the year that, you know, things were looking up, things were looking better, and i don't think in that first year i don't think i actually was able to visit the school. i saw after the first year their test score gains which were almost unbelievable. and, you know, though we like to see gains, sometimes when we see gains you kind of wonder whether those are real or not. i saw a number of schools like that, and i visited all of the schools. and i will tell you in some of those schools i thought, really? this is a school i walked in, and every classroom that i walked into the children were engaged 100%. they were all wearing uniforms. their uniforms were tucked in. i mean, this was a school, literally, that i would

absolutely felt comfortable sending my own children to 100%. this that short a time -- in that short a time period which is a huge thing. so i wanted to kind of understand why, what had happened and the perspective of others. so i decided to hold a teacher listening session there the next week, and i show up at 3:15, and i get out of the car, and the kids are just getting out of school. so i'm walking into the school, and all of a sudden the kids see me, and they're like, chancellor rhee, chancellor rhee, and i'm thinking, this is strange. usually when i walk into schools the kids are looking at me like who's the chinese lady walking around? [laughter] so they're hugging me, and they're taking tire picture -- their picture with me, and i felt a little strange. so i started talking to one of the kids, and one young man i said, okay, what elementary school did you go to? and i said, do you think that that school prepared you for the rigors here at souza? and he said, well, it's really

different. i said, show? he said -- how so? he said, well, the teachers here teach. and i said, okay, what does that mean? he said, well, they really teach us to think outside the box. [laughter] and this is a sixth grader who's saying this, right? so it was interesting just to sort of hear from the kids' perspective. they were all telling me what they thought about both their elementary school experience, how it differed from their middle school experience, they could articulate what the differences were and how they felt, you know, differently coming to school every day. so when you hear it from that intereducative -- perspective, it just gives you a different -- >> okay, point taken. [laughter] next book i'm going to let michelle interview the kids. if i could just jump in with a quick question because it was alluded to the high school dilemma, if you will. when michelle took over there were ten so-called comprehensive high schools, and they were all failing, if you will, by nclb.

and michelle realized she couldn't take them all on at once. i don't know why i'm putting words in your mouth, but you took them on a few at a time, and it was rough sledding. i focused on one, dunbar, which did really well for one year and then ran into some huge problems. and, you know, i came away from this whole thing not really that encouraged about the possibility of turning around failing high schools. i'm not saying it can't be done, but what's your hindsight here? >> it is extraordinarily difficult. there are very, very few examples in this country of what we were trying to do which is taking over a large comprehensive high school as is with the existing students and seeing a massive turn around. i'm very proud to say that one of them that happened in this country was led by my fiance, kevin johnson, in sacramento. that effort, though, took five years. the huge two years what they saw

was a change in the culture and the expectations. and last week i took some of my staff because we're relocating to sacramento to sac heights for a visit, and it was fascinating because that school which, you know, when they took it over was a failing school by any measure about to be taken over by the state, etc., there's not a single security guard, there are no metal detectors, i mean, it's a completely different school now, but it is one of just a few in the country that has managed to get there, and it was not an overnight work of art. it was, now i think they're seven years into it. and they're still learning lessons about what still needs to be done. >> i can attest to that as a reporter for education week. i visited that first year, and it was very much a work in progress. but there was a huge change already, but, you know, it took a while. >> yeah. >> so, interesting. we have time for one more

question. >> i have a question for pote of you. -- both of you. i have a 6-year-old who's in d.c. public schools, he's at stoddard. we love the school and most of the parents do, but the question is the thing you just raise which is what do you do when they reach high school age? and most of us who live in d.c. think we either have to go to private school or move out to the suburbs. i was raised in public schools, i went to college in public school, so i'm a believer in that, but the realities of what do you do for your own kids, and the question i have for you, michelle, is, you know, you mentioned five years turn around in the high school. how much time do you think you needed here to really make a complete change? oops, sorry. you know, my son's elementary school is great, we love it. middle school isn't so much of a problem, but high school really is the sort of barrier. what did you think if you could sort of project, what was your

timeline in your head for, you know, a real change to be affected in the school system? >> [inaudible] from the perspective of a parent who, you know, doesn't have a lot of time to wait for schools to get better because their children only have one shot at an education, michelle, how -- what was your timeline? how long do you think it really would have taken you to get the schools to the point where everyone in this room would feel comfortable sending their own children to them. >> when mayor fenty and i started our effort together, we talked about the transformation of the school district in two terms over an eight-year period. and not that at the end of eight years everything would be perfect, but at the end of eight years we really felt that the entire city would be able to look back and say this is a wildly different school district than it was when they got got

started. and, you know, it's interesting because during my three and a half years here i was off greeted with advice, maybe, from these people who would say you need to slow down. you are doing -- you're trying to do too much tooz, and you need to understand that change doesn't happen overnight. and i will tell you that none of the people who said that to me had children. in the d.c. public schools. finish see, i have my children in the school district, and i knew every single day that every decision that i was making was going to impact them one way or another. and i, i simply wasn't willing to say that, you know, to another family, okay, just give me five more years, and then the school that your kid is at will be better. and that's part of the reason why even though it was controversial, i came out in favor of the scholarships program here, the voucher program and also the charter

schools, effective charter schools because i said i don't want any participant to have to wait with -- parent to have to wait until i fix that high school or elementary school. they should have the right to have their children attend a high quality school today. and i hope that a lot of them stick with me. but my effort has to be focused on changing them as quickly as humanly possible, to use the fenty praise, and hope what we were doing was so high quality that it brought people, potentially, back. but i was not going to close the coor and lock -- door and lock people in and say you've got to take one for the team and have your kid suffer through the next few years so we can fix the system. >> because i'd like to end on a positive note, i will not respond to that question. but i already have described, i was stunned by just, i mean, i knew going in nationally how difficult it is to turn around

an urban high school, and, you know, i thought i was watching one, you know? is but it didn't really make it that far in year two. and it's, like i said, i will end on a positive note, and, you know, there are some other people here i tried to identify who maybe have come in. i think sean branch is here now, raise your hand. corner him, he's the one who rescued me when i showed up for the wrong day on the interview. also gave me batteries when my recorder ran out. listen, i appreciate everyone coming, and we want some mingling and some book signing opportunities. the books are being given away by the publisher, and i'll be there as long as my voice -- actually, as long as my hand holds out. so thank you very much for coming, appreciate it. [applause]

>> for more information visit the book's web site, the bee eater.com. >> mit american history professor pauline maier is on booktv's "in depth" later today. she's written several books on the american revolution including "the old revolutionaries," "american scrip stature," and revolution written last -- ratification, written last year. today at noon eastern on c-span2. watch previous "in depth" programs at booktv.org where you can also find the entire weekend schedule. journalist, lawyer and trade union leader steve early will be our quest live online on booktv.org on march 8th at

6:30 p.m. eastern. the author will be discussing "the civil wars in u.s. labor" at busboys and poets here in washington d.c. in the his book, mr. early details the struggle within the labor movement and offers strategies for moving forward. simply go to booktv.org on tuesday at 6:30 p.m. eastern, click on the watch icon in the featured programs section of the page. ♪ >> coming up next, booktv presents after words, an hourlong program. best selling author susan jacoby tackles the myths of old age in her new book, "never say die." she claims that american culture attempts to delude the aging population into believing 90 is the new 50. she discusses growing older in america with aarp state news editor sylvia smith.

♪ >> host: susan jacoby, welcome. you're the author of the new book "never say die" with the subtitle "the myths of marketing of the new old age." so what is the myth of the new old age? >> guest: the myth is that we are all -- and by we, i really mean people who are not old now, the aging boomers, people who are in their 50 but our old age is going to be lived in a way that's totally different from the way in which old age has been lived in the past. that we are going to all be skydiving centenarians i like to think -- >> guest: like the former president? >> guest: yeah. that we are simply going to get older but not actually old. >> host: and so why do you think

the culture's invested in sugar coating old age? >> guest: well, it's very interesting. now, when i was growing up, like all of the oldest boomers in the 1950s, i would say that attitudes toward old age were negative in a particular way. old age was just something that started the minute a man retired, and he returned home to bother his wife. and her only role was to be the grandmother to her grandchildren, and that was the whole another not just of old age, but just of anybody who was retired in their 60s. now i think we've had a great corrective to that which the aarp has had a role in the sense that we now understand that people over 65 can do a lot of things and can that their only role isn't just lying around the house watching tv and looking after the grand kiddi