Going back: moving forward 5: Retiree takes classes just for pleasure

Editor’s note: The Aztec Press presents its award-winning series from Fall 2009. This series, “Going back: moving forward,” tells the stories of nontraditional students who have returned to school—some after a few years, others after many. “Going back: moving forward” won first place for Feature Writing in the Society of Professional Journalists regional 2-year/community college category. It reached the top three nationally, to become a nationalist finalist.

Story by Liza Porter
Photo by Jessica Canchola

“We teach what we most need to learn” is a well-worn New Age cliché. But clichés become clichés because they’re true, right?

Sally Curd knows that learning never stops. Teaching and learning have walked hand-in-hand during her life.

Curd taught high school English in Tucson for more than two decades. About 20 years ago, she began taking Pima Community College classes for her personal satisfaction.

She started with non-credit classes.

“I love their community classes,” Curd says. “I started taking those, there were some little short things on writing.”

Curd has studied humanities, creative writing and history at PCC. The history class at Downtown Campus was “a dynamite class. It covered both World War I and World War II,” she says.

“The sciences I haven’t tried,” Curd adds. “I definitely want to do that. I want to take a plant sciences class.”

Curd also attends PCC weekend writing workshops and the Pima Writers Conference that takes place at West Campus each May.

She attended a poetry weekend workshop at PCC several weeks ago conducted by Steve Kowit, a California poet and teacher.

“It was very substantive,” she said. “We did a lot of writing, we did critiques of each other’s pieces.”

This semester she is enrolled in a literature class.

“I really think that at Pima the non-traditional students are as much the rule as the exception,” Curd says. “Most of the classes, there have been a very good number of … shall we say, students over 30?” She laughs.

“The lit class I’m taking right now would be a very definite exception. I am definitely the oldest one in there. There are two other people who are mature adults, but not near as old as I am.”

In the literature class, the career teacher interacts with kids close to the ages of her former students.

“They probably think I’m a blabbermouth,” she says. “I’d like to get more from their point of view about things. Quite often, especially with literature, I think the age that you’re coming from really has a lot to do with your interpretation, your perception. I’m very interested in what the younger ones think.”

Curd has thought about taking on-line classes, but enjoys being in a classroom. “I like the interactions. That’s one of my reasons for taking classes.”

She bases her class choices on interest and when the class meets. She’d rather attend classes during the day.

However, she’s heard good things about a nonfiction writing class that meets once a week in the evening for almost three hours. She might enroll next spring.

“It’s so long,” Curd says. “You’ve really got to be motivated. On the other hand, it forces me to write.”

Curd says she loves having Pima so accessible, and appreciates having access to the PCC library.

“It’s been my experience that the quality of teaching at Pima is outstanding and I’ve heard from some people that it’s even better than the U of A,” she said.

Though she already has a master’s degree in education, Curd says if she could afford it, she would go to UA for a master’s in rhetoric.

“A study of the way language is used,” she says. “Word choice, sentence length, introductions, endings… formal or casual.”

That sounds suspiciously similar to high school English class.

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2: Work at Orphanage Provides Inspiration
3: Self Taught ‘techie’ re-engineers himself
4: Life ‘controlled chaos’ for military student
6: Renaissance woman enjoys life-long learning
7: Journalist switching careers to teaching