Pain prevents 98-year-old from finishing classes

Persons of all ages need to grasp opportunities to further their education.

Lessie Williams, a 98-year-old resident of Rose Hall, shared this advice with SEARCHLIGHT during an interview on Wednesday.

“The people are not grasping the opportunity,” she said.

Williams was first featured in the October 9, 2015 edition of SEARCHLIGHT, when she began taking evening classes in English and Mathematics at the age of 97.

Sadly, Williams was unable to complete the course, because pains in her right hand made writing difficult.

“Sometimes the fingers get stiff and hurt ….”

Although she was offered the opportunity to sit in on the classes without writing, she declined.

The elderly woman stated that she would encourage other elderly persons to take advantage of educational opportunities, but lamented that at present, there is no one available to teach classes in her community.

“Nobody seems to be interested,” the elderly woman said.

She explained that she first became interested in taking the classes after hearing about students who were failing Mathematics and English Language at CSEC, subjects she excelled in as a child.

“I kept wondering if is the same subjects that I learned in school that these children are failing,” Williams said.

She noted that during her time in the classes, she discovered that while many of the methodologies have changed, she would get the same answers using the methods she learned in school as a child.

“In numerating we would say units, tens, hundreds, thousands and we start from the left out to the right, and then this one started from the right on to the left hand. They call it digits,” Williams said, laughing.