We'll start tomorrow at 9:00," said the piano teacher to the prospective student. Actually, the teacher was a distant family relative. Iracema Barbosa was a concert pianist with decades of experience, who had taught all kinds of students, from toddlers to accomplished professional musicians, in São Paulo, Brazil.
Iracema was just about to become an octogenarian. And she had never had a pupil like this one: He, too, was only a few months from turning 80. Iracema felt eager to do something she had never tried before—to challenge the commonly accepted notion that age makes the learning process more difficult.
The pupil, for his part, felt sure it was never too late to learn. Now retired, but very active tutoring students in foreign languages, he made time, in between his scheduled classes, to fulfill his old cherished dream of learning to play the piano. But he had to start from scratch!
