Learning from learners.

I have recently had the privilege to volunteer at my local collage. In all honestly, I’m at the stage in my life where I have to start making big decisions and owning them and the consequences that come with them. Knowing what’s best for you, isn’t always easy. I’m 19 and I feel under so much pressure to be on the right path, including five year plans that incorporate experience and education towards my chosen career. I’m 19, how the hell am I supposed to know that already? I don’t know what I want to be or whether what I’m doing is right in the long run, and that scares me, because I’m British and we like our five year plans! I recently left my university. I will shortly be travelling, once again. I’m having to reassess my life. And volunteering was a desperate use of my time, filling my current unemployment status with some purpose.

 

The class is for adults that are returning to education. For varied reasons, their education has been limited. Many have children, families abroad, work and other commitments. All of them, despite so many obstacles have made the brave decision to return to school and give their education another go. I can’t speak on behalf of their children, but that decision makes me feel proud.

I haven’t known the group long, but they have welcomed me like a peer and a fellow student, one of the lovely girls laughed at me when their homework was being handed around “are you not going to take one Jess?” she teased. In fact I feel so comfortable around them that I’m not ashamed to admit when I get a word or two wrong in the spelling test! We all make mistakes, better to laugh at it.

Being me, I had this predetermined thought that I would be of no use within a class room, and yet to my surprise, after one lesson I felt needed. One woman was expressively grateful when I told her why I was there, simply, ‘to help you, if you need me’. I had to improvise on the spot, having never done classroom help before, I used the basic skills I’d learnt at school and told them the tricks of the trade that help it all stick in your mind. We did fractions (dividing by halves and quarters) and I helped teach the students how to copy and paste (perhaps a bad habit when it comes to assignments).

They’re simple procedures that most of us take for granted. The changing era of technology is difficult to keep up with, particularly when you’ve been out of education for a while. Doing our fractions has become second nature, but so many adults have missed out on the basic IT, Maths and English skills that help us live our lives. How do you paste a link to your boss in an email? What does it mean when it says 2/3rds off that cute cardigan I want from Topshop?

And the joy you see slowly enter their eyes and the relief spread across their shoulders when they finally get the answer and more importantly the process, is beyond worth it.

Education is invaluable and it’s never too late to have a second or third or fourth chance. Life can get in the way of our schooling or even just not feel like a right fit and it’s important that with looming fees and high unemployment rates that we don’t jump into further education without first pausing for thought. When the time is right for you, and you want to enhance your experiences with further study it will always be readily available to you. Besides, education doesn’t stop in the classroom. In fact the majority of what you learn, you’ll learn out of school, think of qualifications as a pedestal for real life.  

Leaving university was a big decision for me, and one I didn’t take lightly. I have been privileged and many wouldn’t even have had the choice that I did. I want to learn more but I believe it’s the skills we acquire during our lessons that are transferrable to our life that matter, not necessarily if we got the answer right or the top score. I left university because I wanted to learn something that I felt had relevance to me and the world and environment I am a part of. So learn a language or your grandmother’s best recipe, do a degree, don’t do a degree, take the internship, go back and get your GCSE’s, even if you’re just learning how to socialise with people, that’s okay. It’s not the qualification that matters, it’s the process, it’s the skills you acquire and how you apply them to your life, your goals and your aspirations.

 

There are people in the world, like Malala Yousafzai (she was shot in the head by the Taliban for her peaceful campaign for women’s education) fighting for the right to learn, who have a refusal to give up because it’s never too late and I believe that my class are included in that. We can all be educated both inside the classroom and out, on the job and off the job, old or young, we can all fight for the right to learn. We all deserve to have a better quality of life with a greater understanding of our world that can open our lives up to further opportunities.

We can progress as people, as long as we never give up, whether you’re a girl fighting the Taliban, a middle aged man returning to school or me, a university drop out, trying to find other ways to educate myself and stumbling across incredible experiences, like this, along the way.