Learning Later in Life

It's often said that we learn things at the wrong time. University students frequently do the minimum amount of work because they're crazy for a good social life instead. Children often scream before their piano practice because it's so boring, have to be given gold stars and medals to be persuaded to swim, or have to be bribed to take exams. But when you're older? Ah, now that's a different story.

Over the years, I've done my share of adult learning. At 301 went to a college and did courses in History and English. It was an amazing experience. For starters, I was paying, so there was no reason to be late -1 was the one frowning and drumming my fingers if the tutor was delayed, not the otherway round. Indeed, if I could persuade him to linger for extra five minutes, itwasabonus, not a nuisance. I wasn't frightened to ask questions and homework was a pleasure not a pain. When I passed, I had passed for me and me alone, not my parents or my teachers. The satisfaction I got was entirely personal.

Some people fear going back to school because they worry that their brains have got rusty.

But the joy is that, although some parts have rusted up, your brain has learnt all kinds of other things since you were young. It's learnt to think independently and flexibly and is much better at relating one thing to another. What you lose in the rust department, you gain in the maturity department.

In some ways, age is a positive plus. For instance, when you're older, you get less frustrated. Experience has told you that, if you're calm and simply do something carefully again and again, eventually you'll get the hang of it. The confidence you have in other areas - from being able to drive a car, perhaps - means that if you can't, say, build a chair instantly, you don't, like a child, want to destroy your first pathetic attempts. Maturity tells you that you will, with application, eventually get there.

Learning late doesn't mean having to go back to school. Recently, I learnt how to swim. I thought I could swim before, but I could always get across the pool quicker by walking than swimming. Wearing my glasses to see the other side didn't help, because I never put my face in the water. True, I thought I looked silly wearing goggles with lenses over my eyes and a nose clip, and picking up coloured rings from the bottom of the pool to conquer fear of water, but the sense of achievement when I finally managed to swim speedily from one side of the pool to the other was huge. I only wished my family had been there to congratulate me, as I felt I deserved.

Then there was the skating. Inspired by seeing ice-dancers on TV, I staggered on to the ice quite recently and, unlike the younger students, was tense with terror in case I fell over. I was the worst in the class, but I did eventually get a piece of paper that said I had now achieved the art of skating forwards. And, although I'll never do ice-dancing, I feel pretty courageous for braving the ice.

Finally, there was the piano. I hated piano lessons at school, but I was good at music. And coming back to it, with a teacher who could explain why certain exercises were useful and musical concepts that, at the age of ten, I could never grasp, was magical. Initially I did feel a bit strange, thumping out a piece that I'd played for my school exams, with just as little comprehension of what the composer intended as I'd had all those years before. But soon, complex emotions that I never knew existed poured from my fingers, and suddenly I could understand why practice makes perfect.