What is School?
“My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
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School is not work
The ancient Greek word "skole" from which we get our word "school" had a variety of meanings depending on the context in which it was used:
leisure, free time or the activities thereof [especially lecture, disputation, discussion]
rest [the Hebrew sabbath in the 4th commandment]
philosophy [the love of learning]
the place where lectures are given.
Stated in the negative, school is "not work". This does not mean school is easy, but rather that it is dedicated to pausing [even briefly] from one's labors to engage in the thoughtful pursuit of new ideas beyond one's immediate needs and concerns. And what better time to do this than in one's youth ... as is the practice of almost all creatures with young. When you think of school in this way, you begin to understand why it is integrally connected with family, for how can one be at leisure for any extended period of time unless one is sacrificially supported by others [like loving parents and teachers]?
School is an act not a time or space
Although most of us [and even the ancient Greeks] tend to associate school with a given time and space, it is the act of learning which occupies both the body and mind regardless of when or where it happens to occur.
Yes, having a space and time that is dedicated to "school" can be very helpful in creating an atmosphere that is conducive to the listening, reading, reflection, writing and dialogue which characterize a school ... but a school occurs spontaneously whenever and wherever there is an act of learning.
Learning was explained by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget as acts of "assimilation or accommodation". A good way to think of these two aspects of learning is "building and remodeling". Building involves constructing new ideas, while remodeling involves deconstructing existing ideas that are no longer comprehensive or coherent and replacing them [in part or whole] with ideas which are more comprehensive and coherent. Assimilation is never easy, and accommodation is even harder.
School becomes education
Albert Einstein is reputed to have said "an education is what's left when you have forgotten everything you learned in school". What did he mean?
School is like food ... always perishing [via metabolism] into education which is always growing in breadth [comprehension] and maturing in strength [coherence].
School is like a bicycle wheel ... it must complete many revolutions [ie. acts of learning] for the journey [ie. education] to unfold.
And because education has a purpose [which is to renew our ideas and actions in accordance with Nature's limits and consequences], school has meaning. AN Whitehead expressed the purpose of education this way in his address on The Aims of Education:
"We can be content with no less than the old summary of educational ideal which has been current at any time from the dawn of our civilisation. The essence of education is that it be religious.
"Pray, what is a religious education?
"A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. DUTY arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of REVERENCE is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity."
As you start and operate your own school, you will find yourself returning again and again to ask and answer this question, "What does 'school' really mean?". It is a vital question and one you must answer for yourself.
More coming on the meaning behind the words school, learning and education.
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