96-year-old student graduated from college

2020-12-06 05:49:38甘肅天水市藉口中學宋月定

瘋狂英語·新讀寫 2020年11期

甘肅天水市藉口中學宋月定

這位96歲的老人，用他的行為證明了他對知識的渴望與不懈追求。

題材體裁文章詞數建議用時約427 8分鐘人物記敘文

難詞探意

1. laurel /?l?r?l/n. （表示榮譽的）桂冠

2. chancellor /?t?ɑ?ns?l?(r)/n. 校長

3. confess /k?n?fes/v. 坦白；承認

Giuseppe Paterno, 96 years old, has faced many tests in life—childhood poverty, war and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic.Now he has sailed through an exam, making him Italy's oldest university graduate.

This week, the former railway worker stepped forward to receive his diploma and the traditionallaurelwreath awarded to Italian students when they graduate. Paterno grew up loving books, but he never had the chance to study. “I said, ‘that's it, now or never,' and so in 2017, I decided to enroll,”he told Reuters in his apartment in the Sicilian city of Palermo, which he rarely leaves nowadays due to his weakness.

“I understood that it was a little late to get a three-year degree but I said to myself ‘let me see if I can do it'.” He graduated first in his class with top honors, receiving congratulations from the universitychancellorFabrizio Micari. Growing up in a poor family in Sicily in the years before the Great Depression, Paterno received only basic schooling as a child. He joined the navy before going on to work on the railways as he married and brought up two children. In a society focused on rebuilding after the war, work and family were the most important, but Paterno wanted to learn and graduated from high school at the age of 31. “Knowledge is like a suitcase that I carry with me. It is a treasure for me,” he said.

As a student, he tapped out his essays on the typewriter his mother gave him when he retired from the railways in 1984. He was addicted to printed books and was not tempted by the late-night student parties of his 20-year-old classmates, who applauded him warmly at the graduation ceremony.“You are an example for younger students,” his sociology professor, Francesca Rizzuto, told him after he passed his final oral examination in June.

Paternoconfessedto a little unease with the video calls that replaced classroom teaching during the coronavirus shutdown, but he was not put off by the disease itself and everything else he had been through in life. “All of that strengthened us, all of my peer group and all of those who are still alive.It didn't really scare us that much.”

As for what he planned to do next, he said he was not about to stop after graduation. “My project for the future is to devote myself to writing. I want to revisit all the texts I didn't have a chance to explore further. This is my goal.”