An 85 year old Palestinian grandmother, Jihad Battu (born 1936 in Nablus during the Nakba) was recently in the news for an extraordinary achievement. Having dropped out of school in 1948 at the age of 12, due to the Nakba as well as her mother’s ill-health, she recently obtained her bachelor’s degree in Islamic Shariah at the age of 85. She had already been taking courses in Arabic, English and Hebrew and found that the passion to learn had never been quenched in her. She studied for hours at a stretch, even at night, and says that “I will teach what I studied to the people around me. What is the benefit of science if I keep it for myself only?I want to teach others so they can benefit as well?”