Just weeks after receiving an honorary doctorate in education from the University of the Free State in South Africa, Oprah Winfrey has now announced plans to become a school teacher next year at her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.
According to PopEater, Winfrey, who recently returned to the U.S. after visiting her Johannesburg, South Africa school, emailed her fans about her student’s progress.
“They were all stressed for tests, but doing fine,” Winfrey wrote. “No major crisis this trip. I love being with them and talking to them about all things important. When I’m there I’m talking from the time I get up till I go to bed, about everything teenage girls are going through. It’s the same all over the world.”
Winfrey then revealed that she would be returning to the school this fall to teach a life skills course called “It’s Life 101” for her senior female students.
“Should be fun since I love to teach. And they’re like sponges,” Oprah said. “Like 12th graders everywhere, this first class is both anxious and excited about going to college. Most will be the first in their family. So it’s a very big deal for them, and they’re feeling the pressure.”
Winfrey then stressed the benefit of a good education, explaining how her own education has allowed her and many others valuable options in life.
“When Chris Rock was last on the show he said, ‘real wealth is having options.’ I thought that was pretty profound,” Oprah says. “I now stress to my girls that education prepares you to have options. Without it you have none. Just took a walk around the neighborhood watching sprinklers on the back lawn … (I love sprinklers). Made me think about the red dirt road I traveled from Mississippi (no sprinklers) to the here and now … And how that journey could have only been possible in the USA.”
Winfrey may have only just received her doctorate in education, but with her own valuable life skills and experience being a mentor to an entire nation of viewers, it’s easy to believe that any classroom of students would benefit from her hard earned teachings. –nicholas robinson