At Age Eighty, When She Start Studying, She Forgets All Her Worries, at Age Eighty-Four, He’d Started Going to Middle School, Was Able to Fulfill His Dreams of Going to School for Himself

not my photo

The good examples of continuing education here, from the Newspapers, translated…

The makeup middle school in Longtan, Taoyuan had two eldest students, they were, the eighty-four year old man, Lee and the eighty year old woman, Chih, the two of them are over eighty, and still kept up that interest in learning new things.  From a military background, Lee was in school, because he wanted to fulfill his dreams of attending regular school, and Chih’s favorite class is Chinese, learning to write helps her forget about her worries.

Lee, whose hometown was in Wuhan said, that when he was younger, his family lived in poverty, didn’t have any money to put him through school, later on, he’d gone to two years of elementary school, but, those two years were passed in the sounding off of the alarms for the air raids.  He said, back then, there were, wars happening constantly, “recalling my schooling career as a child, it seemed, that we were always hiding in the protective places.”

After Lee enlisted, he’d carried that small pocket dictionary around, to learn the characters, and, later on, because the military required, he’d gone to the armor schools, the guard schools, etc., but never receiving a formal education became a regret he’d always had.  After he’d retired from the army, he’d worked in the security guard industry, wanted to study still, but didn’t know that there were, makeup schools for the elderly.  Until he saw that flyer at the dentist’s office, he’d immediately signed himself up.

“I’m finally in school, I’m so very excited!”, he said, because of his age, how he couldn’t learn as fast or remember as much, but, any time he has on his hand, he’d, picked up the books.  And, because he didn’t have any fundamentals, the hardest subject for him was mathematics, and he’d enjoyed the other subjects very much.

Bi-Yu Chih said, before she’d attended the makeup schools, she never had any education at all, didn’t think education was that important when she was a child, until when she went into business and needed to have dealing with the banks, that, was when she realized the importance of an education.  She said, that back then, she was making a deposit, but, couldn’t even do simple math, and the lady at the counter was very kind, taught her how to do the simple mathematics, she’d carried the woman’s kindness to her heart, and made up her mind, to get an education.

Chih said, that her favorite class is Chinese, not only can she learn to read and write, being very focused in her studies can keep her troubles away from her mind, she cherishes the opportunity to still attend school at the age of eighty very much.

These two elderly are very motivated, because they’d not have a chance to get an education when they were younger, and, they’re just starting to make up for the lost years, and, even though they’re both elderly, the attitude to which they take to learning in their classes should be commended.

not mine still…