Archive Article: While We Live We Learn. 15 Feb 02
January 3, 2009

The schools are now getting back to work – including the country’s largest school for older Australians. But unlike many younger Australians who may not be quite so keen on school, these older Australians love learning.

There are at least 16 schools for seniors in Australia. Wesley Mission’s School for Seniors began in 1969. It then had 400 students and it now has almost 1,400. The minium age for enrolment is 50. The oldest current student is 94 years young. The School began solely with volunteers and there are now about 111 volunteers involved. But as the School has expanded, so staff have had to be employed. For 17 years, until his sudden passing a year ago, the late Richard Chambers oversaw this expansion. He has been replaced by Peter Bentley.

The School offers 546 courses per term. 95 tutors give their valuable time to take the classes. They are all accomplished and highly educated tutors in their own right. Many are teachers of one sort of another who in “retirement” have undertaken a new lease of teaching. The School’s wide range of classes includes languages, speech and drama, history, dance, philosophy, computers and arts and crafts. The range of courses on offer continues to grow to meet the needs of students. A new course for this year is cartoon drawing.

The students and tutors come from all areas. Some travel as far a field as Penrith, Campbelltown and the Central Coast to get to the city of Sydney location.

I have just been appointed Patron of the School. My association with the School began exactly 25 years ago (almost to this week), when I was asked to speak at a current affairs class. I continued to be a speaker for the years 1977-85. I went to Perth in 1986, to work at the Trinity Uniting Church. This has a School for Seniors modelled on the Sydney one and so I also spoke there. Since returning to Sydney in 1991, I have resumed my presentations at the School.

I have enjoyed my association with the School partly because of all the marvellous people. The School has attracted such an informed group of people over the years. I have very much enjoyed the question sessions – they have kept me on my toes.

Additionally, people attend the School because they want to learn; they have a love of learning. I have lectured at universities in NSW and WA since 1973. So often the students have been at classes because their parents thought that it would be good for them to go university or because they looked to a university education as a “meal ticket”. In either event, there may not have been much of a love of learning involved.

But at the School for Seniors, there is a real thirst for knowledge. Also, because there are no diplomas and “meal tickets”, the students are here simply because they want to be; if they get bored they will not stay. Therefore there is a real challenge for all presenters to be relevant and to meet the needs of students.

I have gained a great deal from my association with the School over the years. I am all the more honoured now to become the School’s Patron.

The School is not only a place to learn and have fun but it is also a place that one can make new friends and enjoy living to the full. As the School motto says “While we live we learn.

BROADCAST ON FRIDAY 15TH FEBRUARY 2002 ON RADIO 2GB’S “BRIAN WILSHIRE PROGRAMME” AT 9 PM, AND ON 17TH FEBRUARY 2002 ON “SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE” AT 10.30 PM