I asked her, during one of our lunches, why she preferred teaching adults. “I am not excited by incuriosity,” she replied. “Paradoxically, the young are more certain of themselves, while their ambitions, if objectively nebulous to the outsider, seem clear and achievable to them. Whereas with adults ... it’s true that some enrol as a kind of self-indulgence but most come because they feel a lack in their lives, a sense that they might have missed something, and that they now have a chance—perhaps even a final chance—to put things right. And I find that profoundly affecting.”
