Learning as an adult isn't easy. But it's incredibly rewarding. That is recurrent education.

The times are calling for lifelong learning.

It's saying that since the times are changing, you should change too.

However, I don't think that's all there is to it.

Adult education comes with unexpected benefits.

Recurrent education

When you say an adult is going back to school, people say, 'You're quite the eccentric, aren't you?'

But I didn't want to give up on my potential. A housewife, a part-time working mom. I didn't want to just wither away as only that for the rest of my life, haha.

Yes, I wasn't happy at all.

I was full of regrets.

I wondered if marriage was always this stifling.

That's why the dream of studying abroad, which I had once given up on, was always alive in my mind.

After graduating high school, traveling abroad for a year or two, then going to college. Working, then going back to college. Even as a mom, studying at university to clean up my life and start walking again. In America, that has been normal for decades.

A dream I once gave up on. That dream kept smoldering forever.

The trigger

If it's for a child's college education, you don't worry that much about the budget.

Then, what about the budget for adult education?

Unless you are in a very well-off family, usually adults are expected to work.

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However, ever since I started working in the education industry, I began to seriously think, I want to go to university.

After my child-rearing duties settled down, I worked as a children's English conversation teacher, and then I became a cram school instructor. At that school, everyone else was either a student or a graduate of a certain university. I was the only one with a junior college degree. Of course, I was never entrusted with students preparing for entrance exams.

It was from that environment that my desire to take university entrance exams began to grow into something real.

The Plan

The thing that worried me the most was the budget. This wasn't something I could discuss with my husband. If it were for our child's education, that would be one thing, but for me, in my 40s, to want to go back to school?

My child was still in the upper grades of elementary school. My husband came home late every night and was constantly away on overseas business trips. He was never home.

So, I saved up the money I earned from my part-time job.

When I first started working in my late 30s, even before I had received my first paycheck, I declared to my husband, I will be using my salary myself.

My husband was surprised and looked a bit annoyed.

But I did not back down.

Why? Because my husband has always lived his life focused only on his company. But I didn't even have any pocket money. Even when he told me I could use his, it wasn't something I could easily do. That's why I decided to work.

I felt suffocated. I wanted to be more free.

And so, I saved up the tuition fees.

Unexpected Hardships

With a limited budget, my options weren't very numerous. So, I transferred into the third year of a national university.

However, my final educational background was from an art college. Most of the credits from my two years at that art college were not accepted at the university I transferred to. I had no choice but to complete four years' worth of credits in two years. It was incredibly busy. I had no budget. That was the one thing I couldn't do anything about.

What is wrong with being poor?

But something even more miserable was waiting for me.

I was supposed to quickly earn my credits and go back to tutoring, but I cried during my first course registration and again when I had to submit a report in my first week of school.

I had never used a computer before.

Presentations were done in PowerPoint. I had to paste spreadsheets and graphs using Excel. In statistics, I had to use software to perform calculations.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

This was likean adult who couldn't read entering university.

The word 'miserable' doesn't even begin to cover it. 'Ahhhhh... I'm such an idiot...' I held my head in my hands over and over again.

Change

Eventually, I got used to the computer, and wanting to learn more, I went on to graduate school.

But by then, my savings were empty. So I looked for work. In the end, I managed to pay back the tuition I had borrowed from my husband.

The best thing about that university life was joininga political philosophy seminar.

I read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Even though I worked in society, had a family, and raised children, I never had the chance to encounter political philosophy in the midst of those tasks.

However, sometimes things you don't necessarily need can be incredibly beneficial.

Rousseau had a profound effect on my heart.

I cannot help but feel that it was the most luxurious time I have ever spent in my life.

Asense of being a sovereign citizen, which hadn't existed in me even by a millimeter, began to grow.

Conclusion

They say it's the era of relearning. Prime Minister Kishida says he has allocated a budget of 1 trillion yen over five years for adult relearning. In a world that is changing drastically, relearning is in high demand.

My own relearning deviated from my initial goal, and I didn't return to being a cram school teacher. However, I started to notice things I wouldn't have cared about before, and I couldn't help but think about them.

And I gained an unexpected treasure.I was able to get along with my husband. Of course, it's not because we paid off our debts (laughs). I think it's because my husband and I started seeing things from the same perspective. My husband, who has lived in a society of rapid change, and me, who lived through housework, child-rearing, and part-time work. The two of us were not seeing the same things.

Even though we were so close, we quickly became unable to understand each other. I also realized that it wasn't just my husband's fault. It was learning that taught me that.

I started walking again like a freshly starched white shirt.

You don't have to study abroad to learn. That's why I now believe that recurrent education was my hope.

*Thank you for reading until the end✨

*I also talk about this on Stand.fm. Please listen if you'd like✨