Teaching aging in the public schools: Results of an exploratory study

A survey of 500 public school teachers in Texas was conducted to determine the extent to which aging content is incorporated into curricula. Results show that very few teachers (3.6%) make specific provision for teaching about aging. Almost one-half of the teachers who indicated they did not teach about aging stated they would include this area in their curricula if instructional materials were available. Most of the teachers (68%) indicated their willingness to participate in short-term inservice training to better prepare themselves to teach about aging. From the results of this study it appears that educational gerontology has far to go in the direction of “gerontologizing” public schools at all levels. Yet the willingness of teachers to learn more about this important curriculum area is encouraging.