Show z t P Students Who Understand by Elouise Bell My friend Penny in the prime e of life and mother of a year old son Is starting back bac to college this fall after a hiatus of 20 years That makes her part of a group that is as representative of the women's movement as are women in inthe inthe inthe the work force single mothers and microwave groupies Penny Penn enny is a Re-entry Re Student A while back older students in college were a rarity except for the periodic influxes of returning GIs Most of us remember the graphic depiction of the hero of Marilyn Frenchs French's The Hie Women's fomen's Room a ish a new divorcee so terrified W be in college that she cowered in a stall of the rest room waiting for the bell to ring so she wouldn't have to mingle with her younger classmates Since then the ranks of the re-entries re have grown so steadily that they no longer are considered un unusual ual indeed they are re responsible fo for raising the average age g of r I college students by close to five years Prognosticators say the trend will continue Well that's just fine by me I view the re-entry re woman from the other side of the desk so to speak and have done so s since ce 1958 Frankly I dont don't care if a as s students student's dents dent's head hea i is brown blue or bald its it's what's inside that that- interests me Pink and green punk hair in re recent ent years have startled me a bit but I try to stay cool As I have nostalgically reminisced about several decades of re-entry re women rarely rarely men in my classes my conclusion is that for Jor the teacher they offer far more pluses than minuses My first re-entry re student appeared when I was a fledging teacher 23 and primed full of green confidence L L. was in her elegantly dressed the mother of four the daughter of a well-known well educator and initially so scared she left sweaty palm prints on her in class essays She wrote three and four drafts of every paper while her young classmates ran in after the bell with their messy offerings still smoking from th the little portable typewriters students used in those days if they were lucky A compulsive perfectionist who neatly covered all her textbooks in wrapping paper and resisted writing in those books despite my pleadings about the importance of reading with a pencil in ip hand L L. agonized over work done in class under pressure essays exams quizzes etc But about halfway through th the semester she rais raised her head above water yater long enough to see that she w was s ses miles es ahead of the nearest student student and and that seemed to calm the re-entry re jitters In the years since L. L has earned several degrees taught at the university and written at least three books t 0 Not every one is quite that hat strikingly successful of course I remember another brave soul in her early perhaps who entered as a freshman I dont don't think she had actually finished high school though she may have taken an equivalency test College was simply beyond her abilities though she wo worked ked f diligently One morning she reported I told Dad her husband that I didn't have my lessons hadn't done her homework and he said Well you go right up p to your room and do em Ill I'll eat bread and nd m milk k Failing someone like that thatis j is 18 among the less pleasant chores of teaching this time I was spared that when the student dropped out at mid 4 Re-entry Re women worry about the wrong things They worry about not knowing how to QS use a x and d not being as good at recall as the 20 5 r year olds Well I want wani to pass the word along what they do know far out weighs what they dont A couple of years ago I had a woman my age in a literature class She was v very bright very gifted very cool The day we were to discuss i Tillie about tt the e cos costs pJ- pJ too much personal sacrifice Tilli QI s. s great hoit t story il ou p I I F and nurturing too little self nurturing Tell Me A Riddle I asked the students for their response Mostly blank looks Then J. J quietly said I haven't cried in 10 years j This story made me cry It makes a great deal of difference to a teacher if J there is at least one other person in the room who understands and loves a piece as much as she herself Often that person is a re-entry re student This summer I had a perfectly delightful small class in literature but they w i were so young in every way that I couldn't help smiling in spite spits of myself They were bright and enthusiastic and full of their opinions and oh so new in the world Except for Sue who was in her middle years Time and time again a Jl Fa poem that would be only words to the others would ev evoke ke deep feeling in Sue a ff and we would exchange quiet nods of shared understanding Teachers cherish older students because with them most topical allusions will mean something Younger students often not always blank out on phrases 7 e n like the Depression flower power Neal Armstrong and segregation Its It's very pleasant to have someone in the class who doesn't view you as an I escapee from a travel time-travel movie f Well there are many other advantages the re-entry re student has the greatest one usually being motivation The older student is less likely to ask Iii How many words do you want this to be How much of this do you want us to know for the test Do you want us to go to the library The re-entry re student cares less about what I want and more about what she wants o out t of her J 4 tion And because of that though she may get off to a slower start she nearly always outlasts the jumpy young hares in the race J. J Oh a and c a couple cOlpI of other details details' she us usually ly knows how to s spell And d sJ she shei knows that Mexico is not north norm of Africa And if she weeps she will know why l Elouise Bell Bellis is an associate professor at Brigham Young University a writer and a humorist rt 4 |