Oprah Winfrey: Back To School... To Teach?

Oprah Winfrey has announced that she'll be returning to school this fall: to teach.

The course, "It's Life 101," will be taught to 12th grade students at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. She opened the school in 2007, and she says her new course will be about everything she wishes she had been taught about how the world works, according to a note on her Facebook page.

She adds that the experience will be fun since she loves teaching, and says the students are like "sponges" who are anxious and excited to go to college -- many who feel the pressure as the first to attend secondary school in their families.

From PopEater:

"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."

Comments

[Bryneen Gary]

10:31 AM on 07/29/2011

Interesting

[amgnme]

05:45 PM on 07/10/2011

I don't get it. We put up with politicians who lie, cheat, steal and make policies that are profitable for them and destructive to us, and then bash Oprah... ??? Someone please tell me how Oprah teaching at her school affects your life. Or how anything she has done has impacted your life negatively.

[umbrarchist]

12:57 PM on 07/08/2011

She spent $40 million on a school in S. Africa. If it turned out 150 students per year that would be 15,000 in a century. For that much money she could have gotten 200,000 OLPC computers for that many kids. What could be the effect in five years?

[toocoldout]

06:30 PM on 07/08/2011

I think she gets more bang for her buck by educating the best and brightest with every advantage than trying to educate the masses on the cheap. That's already been tried thousands of times in Africa. She's trying something different, trying to create future leaders who will have an outsized impact on the rest of the continent. I also think this criticism is a little racist. No one complains about Harvard spending billions of dollars educating a few hundred students, but when an elite school is built in Africa it's suddenly controversial? What people are really saying is poor black girls only deserve to be educated in bulk.

[amgnme]

05:19 PM on 07/10/2011

@umbrarchist You have the same mentality as those that are destroying our education system: quantity over quality. You would invest in machines that, may or may not be used properly or for the purpose intended, could break down and be useless, would be outdated in one year, lost, stolen, or resold for profit, all of which would lead to very little progress. Oprah on the other hand understands that investing in the child, is more important: a lesson that needs to be learned by all the education policy making politicians.

[Parade Keegan]

01:38 PM on 07/11/2011

I'm jumping into your thread, sorry. You mention quantity vs quality and I want to comment on that in relation to this article. Oprah teaching?? Really and where did she get her credentials from, what school. Oprah in this instance is quantity NOT quality. What she should be doing is hiring the most qualified teacher on the subject for the class. This is grandstanding IMO by an excellent TV personality. IMO it will be a class all about Oprah and the Oprah mystique. Yes, I think she's done some fabulous things but IMO this new career for her is all about vanity.

[umbrarchist]

01:32 PM on 07/27/2011

And how do you know what would be outdated in a year? The computers are all "von Neumann machines" which work the same way they did 50 years ago.

They are making the software more INEFFICIENT to make the hardware outdated. Netbooks are so powerful now that grade school kids could use them for the next TEN YEARS if software was not made more bloated. Computer science people that don't know electronics are so strange. LOL

Oprah spent $40 million dollars on a school that turns out 150 kids per year. In 100 years that would be 15,000 kids. For $40 million she could have distributed 200,000 OLPC computers. You anti-tech people can sure come up with specious arguments.

Isaac Asimov was more up to date in 1951.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html

[Blanca Quintanilla]

12:59 AM on 07/08/2011

why say this journey can only be possible here in the usa? Arrogant and ignorant!

[andymerritt5]

09:15 PM on 07/07/2011

OH GOD RRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNN

[makemesmile]

09:27 PM on 07/07/2011

No one wants to look at her ugly face for too long.

[toocoldout]

10:15 PM on 07/07/2011

I think she's beautiful.

[choclatedoll]

12:33 AM on 07/08/2011

In the Creator's sight we are all beautiful. Beauty is subjective. As an African American woman I see the beauty in Oprah's physical appearance and her spirit. Your idea of beauty is not relevant to her. That the problem with young AA girls. For year we have been told that we are ugly because our skin is darker than others, our lips are NATURALLY full, our hips are broad and our backsides high and our hair kinky and strong. I am so thankfull to my daddy for instilling in his girls a sense of culture and pride in our heritage, for giving us that self awarness and confidence that makes iy possibe for me to walk with my head held high, my back straight with a swing in my hips because I know I am beautiful. I look anyone in the eyes and do not apologize for my presence on this earth.

[methodman]

08:53 PM on 07/07/2011

I think she is trying to empower by gaining extension and concept vocabulary. It really boils down to that first. Flexibility is entirely based on fretting over things in a systemic layout. I wish her the best. To all the nayy sayers. Formal language is where it's at stop using amazing, cool, awesome and good. Plagiarize complicated idioms and analogies.

[changing]

08:13 PM on 07/07/2011

Oprah is going to South Africa to teach in her little girls schools where all the students are nice and complaint. Remember she was talking about how bad American kids were and that is why she invested in South Africa. Love to see her teach in a poor public urban high school in Chicago
with thousands of kids of all abilities and difficulties. Love to see her worry about getting those test scores up or losing her job and the kids losing their neighborhood school to some huckster charter operator. Love to see her try it. See if she contines to trash teachers then.

[darkday]

09:34 PM on 07/07/2011

Oprah loves teachers and she knows how hard it is to teach in a bad urban area. She even admitted that was the reason she chose to open her school in Africa where the kids were begging for an education. I think it's great that Oprah talked bad about American kids because everyone else blames the teachers. Oprah had the courage, honesty, and integrity to admit that part of the problem is the kids don't want to learn. Oprah knows the value of a good teacher. She credits her success in life to her 4th grade teacher Mrs Duncan. When Mrs. Duncan appeared on Oprah, Oprah broke down and started crying hysterically and so did the audience. It was the best moment in TV history. Mrs Duncan when even there on Oprah's last show.

[cjaco]

04:42 PM on 07/10/2011

What about her promoting the propagandist film Waiting for Superman, and continuously repeating the mantra of bad teachers over and over again?

[darkday]

07:10 PM on 07/07/2011

She's the best person in America. I honestly feel she's the best person in the entire country. I really like, admire and respect her so much. If she weren't rich and famous and influential, she'd be the type of person who would fit in with my circle of friends. A high quality human of integrity and endless wisdom. I would love to have a beer with her.

[andymerritt5]

09:16 PM on 07/07/2011

OH O YOS MY HERO

[bealebkk]

06:38 PM on 07/07/2011

Now this is funny...
and sad

[Hlynn]

02:07 PM on 07/07/2011

Good for her! She obviously has a heart for teaching and she has often used her time and wealth to help others. I think the students there will be delighted to have her share what she knows and Winfrey will enjoy it very much as well.

[darkday]

07:10 PM on 07/07/2011

I agree. Oprah is fabulous.

[cjaco]

01:26 PM on 07/07/2011

Great - now I can start bashing her as a bad teacher. What arrogance.

[aztec eight]

07:23 PM on 07/07/2011

Too bad she is not teaching right here in the good ol' USA. Then she would really know what a true challenge teachers face. She would be immediately apologizing to teachers everywhere for her arrogance to think that it is so easy that someone who is rich can jump right in! That is like saying because I have taught 20 years, I can immediately become a successful talk show host because I enjoy talking!

[darkday]

09:41 PM on 07/07/2011

Oprah knows what a challenge teachers face in America. She even cited how hard it is to motivate kids in America as a reason for building her school in Africa where kids beg to go to school. As for you immediately becoming a successful talk show host, the great thing about the talk show business is that anyone with talent can dive right in and be an immediate success just like Oprah did when she became an overnight success in Chicago and before that in Baltimore when they transfered her from news to talk TV. You don't need any degree to host a talk show, just brains and personality. As for Oprah thinking she's qualified to teach, you should be flattered that the billionaire Queen of all media would want to join your occupation. Plus she does have experience. Oprah and Stedman were business professors together at North Western.

[toocoldout]

01:01 PM on 07/07/2011

Oprah came from nothing to become the richest and most philanthropic African American of all time, the most influential woman on the planet, and she did it by totally dominating the ultra-competitive and improvisational field of TV talk shows for a quarter century, popularizing a genre of television that broke countless taboos (gays, addiction, sexual abuse). She even played a pivotal role in electing the first black president and got millions of couch potatoes to read great literature (tolstoy, Faulkner, Morrison). I can't think of anyone whose led a more brilliant life than Oprah Winfrey. If she translate such wisdom into a classroom setting, it would be the most educational class ever.

[andymerritt5]

09:20 PM on 07/07/2011

WOW I'M GERMAN AMERICAN . DOES THAT MEAN I'M NOT AN AMERICAN BUT A GERMAN AMERICAN.

[andymerritt5]

09:22 PM on 07/07/2011

FROM NOW ON I WILL BE GERMAN AMERICAN.NOT AMERICAN WHEN DO I GET MY FREE SH T.

[DogsRKool2]

12:57 PM on 07/07/2011

"... journey possible only in USA?" Does she mean she thinks its still only possible in USA and that's why all these kids are coming here for college? Come on, give SA a little more credit than that!

[wwwTHENOIREFFECTcom]

11:56 AM on 07/07/2011

Oprah has always been a teacher, and the world was her classroom during her reign on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Now she can offer these young girls, future leaders, an intimate setting and a hands on experience to one of the greatest humanitarians the world has seen. Say what you will, but there are few who have given of themselves as Ms. Winfrey. Blessed students.

[val littlewolf heike]

12:16 PM on 07/14/2011

Hi I'm Val Littlewolf Heike, Littlewolf is my Pan one day my last name. I'm a non traditional student in Iowa. I lived in Virginia and love it but its a harsh state if your Gay, Iowa has that in common with Virginia. I lost my home in Virginia in November of 2005 because my landlady announced in Sept of 2005 that Gays and Lesbians would no longer be living in her complexes. Of all things Becky Young was,she was truthful by November of 2005 no Gays lived in her Apartment complexes in Virginia at least none at 101 Madison Lane, Luray, VA . I have been chasing a dream since January 2008, spent 3 .5 years at N.I.C.C. in Calmer Iowa. I am to transfer into Luther College in the fall. I plan on teaching History high school level while working toward a Doctorate to teach College level History. My degree at Luther will be a duel BA the other subject with be Psychology minoring in Art. Most of my monies are in placed excpt for about $7000 to go to a $35,000 a year school. I make $603 a month disability because of being struck by a retired attorney Lynn Morrow on august the 11th of 2008. I keep applying and going to school hoping that something will jump up. thats what you got to do if your people are in their 80's and you haven't co-signers.