A student walks into a Latin classroom and groans, “I’m never going to use this. What’s the point?” How ought one respond? Typical answers assume the value of utility charged by this question: it will help you get a good job; it will help you vote; it looks good on college apps. These answers, along with others, assume that the purpose of any class is practical application.

Respondents often bend over backwards to contrive utility out of Latin or Orchestra or Geometry.

General answers reach three conclusions: good college, good job, benefit to society. Which leads one to extrapolate further: what is the use of school, i.e., k-12 education? Is it job training? Forming a democratic citizenry? Something more such as enjoyment for its own sake? Consider perhaps the most common question posed to graduates (high school or college): what are you going to do?

Such a question implies that school is for jobs or social progress. Education is for doing, acting, and producing. The question to graduates is rarely: why do you enjoy studying that? How does it teach you to be more human? Because in a culture of total work, utility is the lodestar of schooling..

In the world of total work where all pursuits and activities are measured by practicality, to say that schooling is anything else such as enjoyment for its own sake, can be scandalizing.

On the contrary, I would argue that the heart of schooling is leisure: a condition of stillness and attentiveness where the disruption of the ordinary propels one to know. In other words, the primary purpose of school is to foster space for wonder. Though job training and democratic formation are important aspects of schooling, they are not the primary reasons for it. First, I want to characterize the culture of work that influences utility views of schooling, what Josef Pieper calls “the work-a-day world.” Second, I want to examine the limitations of schooling as job training or vocational training in order to show how such a view degrades the human condition.

Third, I examine the view of schooling as democratic formation and social progress. Although more humane than the previous view, this view of schooling is limited in that “the work-a-day

1 world” still undergirds this education. Thus, it is not fulfilling enough for what it means to be human. Part four: I will make my case that the heart of school is leisure for it elevates us to our highest condition: not to have, but to be.

I. The World of Total Work

Steve Jobs’ story on being a college drop-out.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backward 10 years later.1

In the aftermath of World War II, the Josef Pieper inquired: How is Western Europe to rebuild itself? His answer: leisure. The title of his work is his argument—Leisure: The Basis of

Culture. The answer appears as a perplexity. A stumbling block of naivete. Archaic foolishness.

When you have to rebuild and construct, why is leisure necessary? Isn’t activity, production, usefulness what war-torn Europe needs? Pieper recognizes the seeming folly, particularly amidst our culture of “total work” where “One does not only work in order to live, but one lives for the sake of one’s work.”2 Pieper says this “work-a-day world” values activity for its usefulness. The

1 Jobs, Steve. Stanford News. Accessed November 26, 2019. https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/ 2 Leisure: The Basis of Culture, St. Augustine’s Press 1998, trans by Gerald Malsbar, 4.

2 measure of life becomes production. Results dictate aspirations. Practicality desires. The of life becomes supply and demand. Modernity embraces “total work” because the common good becomes the exchange of common goods for mutual use and satisfaction.3 The more we work, the more material satisfaction we receive. Such a culture is alarming to Pieper. The concern is not that the “work-a-day world” exists; rather, it threatens to become our only world.4 To borrow the phrasing of a 20th century Italian demagogue, “Everything within work, nothing outside work, nothing against work.”

This modern work culture also alarmed Michael Oakeshott, a preeminent 20th century political philosopher. In his essay, “Work and Play,” Oakeshott characterizes this totalizing work culture, noting its appropriate aspects while diagnosing the threatening ones. Oakeshott asserts human beings by nature are creatures of want who dispose of the material world to satisfy their wants. Although some things should not be subjugated to human acquisition (such as sacred objects), the material world may be used to satiate human desires. As modern technology progressed, however, so did the human capacity to satisfy new wants. Hence, work became the most valued activity to attain these desires. Oakeshott defines work as “a continuous and toilsome activity, unavoidable in creatures moved, by wants, in which the natural world is made to supply satisfaction for those wants.”5 Work is an ongoing exertion to fulfill human wants by using the material world. Though it is human nature to work, Oakeshott observes that the emphasis on this

3 Pieper, 64. 4 Pieper, 65. Kimball, Roger. "Josef Pieper: leisure and its discontents." New Criterion, January 1999, 23. Gale Academic Onefile (accessed December 1, 2019). https://link-gale- com.proxy.bc.edu/apps/doc/A54632177/AONE?u=mlin_m_bostcoll&sid=AONE&xid=ae673e22. As Kimball writes on this point: “Again, Pieper does not dispute the importance of training. We cannot do without "the useful arts"-- medicine, law, economics, biology, physics: all those disciplines that relate to "purposes that exist apart from themselves" The question is only whether they exhaust the meaning of education. Is "education" synonymous with training? Or is there a dimension of learning that is undertaken not to negotiate some advantage in the world but purely for its own sake?” 5 Oakeshott, Michael, “Work and Play, “ (1995) First Things. https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/06/003- work-and-play

3 activity has accelerated over the past 400 years. Two new creedal statements have driven this acceleration. One, work is our primary engagement. Two, we are confident that we can satisfy all our wants. The means to happiness becomes acquisition and production. As Oakeshott puts it: “But it is the dream we have inherited; this is the tide that carries us along. It informs all our politics; it binds us to the necessity of a 4 percent per annum increase in productivity; and it is a dream we have spread about the world so that it has become the dream common to all mankind.”6

In the world of total work, all purposes and activities are subordinate to want. Work becomes the highest activity. Productivity the standard of happiness. Therefore, the institution of school becomes the training for manipulating the material world. As Francis Bacon famously observed, Sapientia est potentia: “Knowledge is power.” Not because it makes you more human, but because it permits you to dispose of nature to satiate your multiplying wants. The answer to the disgruntled student’s question becomes: “Because you’ll satisfy more wants.” Mathematics and science are valuable since they help us understand the natural world so that we might manipulate it. Literature and history for learning altruism. Art and music for amusement and recovery of energy to work more efficiently.

II. School as Job Training

A story.

Two applicants are competing for a job. The first applicant enters the room. He is interviewed by his possible supervisor. The supervisor says: “You understand that this is a simple test we are giving you before we offer you the job you have applied for?” “Yes,” says the first applicant. “Well, what is two plus two?” “Four.” The interview concludes. First applicant exits. Enter second applicant. The supervisor asks: “Are you ready for the test?” “Yes,” says the second applicant. “Well, what is two plus two?”

6 Oakeshott, Work and Play.

4 “Whatever the boss says it is.” The second applicant received the job.7

Mortimer Adler, a public intellectual who wrote widely on liberal arts education, addresses school as job training in his education manifesto, Paideia Proposal. Adler outlines prevalent conceptions of education in America. The first is vocational education, that is, job training.8

Education ought to train a work force for a more productive economy. Additionally, education should produce workers/consumers to attain a satisfactory material standard of living. In other words the purpose of schooling is to prepare young men and women to produce and attain material prosperity.

Adler critiques this view of schooling because it misunderstands what it means to be human.9 Certainly human beings have a vocation in the sense of calling (Latin vocare, to call).

Each person has a calling, a work as if it were in their nature such as a lawyer, mechanic, woodworker, social worker, etc. Such work provides fulfillment as well as a means for a sufficient material standard of living. For Adler, schooling should certainly prepare one for a vocation, but it should not be reduced to this purpose. Otherwise, this reduction threatens our very being.10 For happiness, says Adler, is not the mere satisfaction of our desires; rather, it is the virtuous life well- lived a la . The end is not merely a job. Otherwise, in an effort to escape the drudgery of poverty, schooling risks the degradation of the soul. Bartering oneself into indentured servitude to

7 De Mello, Anthony. The Song of the Bird, 1984, 84-85. Roger Kimball notes that Pieper reminds us that ironically the objectivity of the “work-a-day world” is that it leads to destabilizing relativisim and subjectivism akin to Alice’s conversation with Humpty Dumpty: "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all,” Kimball, "Josef Pieper: leisure and its discontents." 8 Adler, Mortimer . The Paideia Proposal : An Educational Manifesto, 1982, 7. 9 Adler, 7, 19. 10 Adler, 17-19

5 things, one becomes a fractured tool of the workplace. In seeking to have, school erodes our capacity to be. Welcome, efficient worker-graduate, to the “work-a-day-world.”

Adler clarifies that some vocational training is permitted in school. One might point to some practical applications—learning organization, punctuality, personal responsibility, civility, timely completion of tasks—as welcome aspects of school. Where Adler departs is the reduction of schooling to vocational training solely. In this regard, the teacher becomes a supervisor who divvies out tasks and deadlines. A math problem becomes less a moment for curiosity, and more for learning how to turn in a product. Such an attitude is about performance, not wonder. And if a student does not see the use in math since it is unrelated to his desired job, then math becomes the opportunity for learning how to satisfy a supervisor’s wants. What is missing, says Adler, is a schooling that prepares students to live life well in a democratic republic.

If schooling is not for learning how to be an efficient worker, but for the life well-lived, then vocational training is an impoverished form of education. If the life well-lived points to our roles as family members, friends, workers, and responsible citizens in a democracy, then schooling must prepare us for all these relationships and responsibilities. A democratic republic requires citizens to determine representatives, policies, and . All citizens need to be educated in order to discern the common good. From John Adams to Martin Luther King Jr. to Dorothy Day, education in history, politics, law, and literature have guided men and women to improve the welfare of society. Even if the Glorious Revolution, ’s Republic, and Willa Cather seem pointless for many jobs, knowledge of these topics helps citizens foster the common good. It seems then that school should not only prepare students for work, but also to be virtuous citizens.

III. Schooling as democratic formation

A selection from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

6 I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart…In [a book entitled “The Columbian Orator], I met with one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights…The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.11

Adler argues that schooling is not only a vocational formation, but even more so a democratic one.12 Schools must educate the citizenry so that they can make prudent decisions about the common good. They need to know how to parse different arguments when important legislation is debated. They need to discern the best candidate for governor or senator. Organization, preparation, and discerning a supervisor’s will are not enough; logic, knowledge, and inquiry are needed. To figure out the consequences of a particular action or policy, one needs knowledge across various disciplines—mathematics, science, theater, , literature, history.

What classroom is best suited for democratic formation? A Socratic one. Adler argues for this position as does Martha Nussbaum. A political philosopher at the University of Chicago,

Nussabaum is a fitting thinker to consult given her defense of liberal arts education for its influence on social, economic, and political progress. For Nussbaum, the best education for democratic formation is a Socratic classroom because it entails questioning and critical thinking—evaluating the logic of an argument and the coherence of a position. The classroom should be a place of fostering individual intellectual growth as well as the shared endeavor with others about how to

11 Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, 1986. 12 Adler, 17.

7 reach truth and justice together. It is not merely point-counterpoint in which parties shout at one another.13 As she writes: “In order to foster a democracy that is reflective and deliberative, rather than simply a marketplace of competing interest groups, a democracy that genuinely takes thought for the common good, we must produce citizens who have the Socratic capacity to reason about their beliefs.”14 Citizens need to be immersed in philosophical reflection and intellectual rigor.

This includes learning to respect one another in the pursuit of truth and a just society. The Socratic way of thinking and questioning best allows us to do this, and it applies across all professions. A doctor has to deliver a diagnosis to a terminally-ill patient in the right way at the right time. A judge must apply the law to a particular case and weigh the circumstances and complexity which may require discretion and leniency.15 A custodian must determine how to proceed when he overhears a sexually explicit joke told about a co-worker. For Nussbaum, Socratic inquiry gives analytic tools for fostering the common good and making moral decisions in particular circumstances. In order to have moral and virtuous citizens, analytical thinking is essential.

“Socrates depicted ‘the examined life’ as a central educational goal for democracy,” states

Nussbaum.16 Assuming there is no physical, emotional, or psychological impairment, each and every citizen has the capacity to deliberate carefully. It is a responsibility of democratic societies to educate in this manner so that citizens can shape and form a more free society. Citizens must make decisions in the public sphere pertaining to “love, fear, and grief, questions of medical and legal and business ethics.”17 These questions may include: what is the best health care system?

How do we address discrimination in the workplace? What is the best care for an aging grandparent

13 Page 473, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A documentary History ed. Bruce A. Kimball. Nussbaum, Martha Craven. Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, 1997. 14 Ibid, 472-73. 15 Ibid, 474. 16 Ibid, 475. 17 Ibid, 480.

8 who can no longer live alone? What is one to do when there is a suspicious discrepancy in a company’s financial records? Citizens are called to act in these situations—to discern what is moral.

Nussbaum argues that a more just and democratic society requires a Socratic education— one where we are called to think for ourselves—nevertheless, her view appears rooted in practicality.18 Nussbaum sees Socratic education as the evaluation of an argument’s logic; yet the greater emphasis for Nussbaum is on the social impact rather than the joy of knowledge. In short,

Socratic questioning is only valuable for social or practical influence. The questions for school become: does this education change laws? Improve wage earnings? Advance rights? She is right to say that social progress is good, thereby the need for a rigorous democratic formation and the limitation of schooling as vocational training. She is missing a key element, however, of Socratic discourse: wonder. Socrates calls wonder the beginning of philosophy. Questioning is rooted in wonder and aimed for knowing for its own sake. Wonder and knowledge are not valuable merely for practical and social benefits, as good as they are. They are part of the life well-lived.

In Paideia Proposal, Adler is correct to say that schooling at its best cannot only be for democratic formation. The primary end of human beings is happiness, by which the virtuous life

18 Friedman, Marilyn. "Educating for World Citizenship." Ethics 110, no. 3 (2000): 586-601. doi:10.1086/233325. Friedman nicely summarizes Nussbaum’s three capacities for a cultivated world citizen: one, critically evaluate one’s own traditions; two, be aware that one is a world citizen, not merely a citizen of one’s region or group; three, look at things from the perspective of another, 587. For other critiques of her work see: Burbules, Nicholas C. "Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education." Harvard Educational Review 69, no. 4 (Winter, 1999): 456-466. https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F212257422%3Faccountid %3D9673; Frum, David. "Cultivating Humanity, by Martha Nussbaum (Book Review)." The Public Interest, Spring, 1998, 105, https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F1298135933%3Faccountid %3D9673; Scialabba, George. "Pollyanna and Cassandra." Dissent, Fall, 1998, 128-131, https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F227292130%3Faccount

9 allows us to live well. This entails, for Adler, “mental, moral, and spiritual [growth]”19 which takes a lifetime. Thus, schooling entails three vocations: “to earn a living in an intelligent and responsible fashion, to function as intelligent and responsible citizens, and to make both of these things serve the purpose of leading intelligent and responsible lives—to enjoy as fully as possible all the goods that make a human life as good as it can be.”20 Both vocational training and democratic formation are means to our end: the fulfilled human life where we delight and practice what we ought.

W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the leading 20th century proponents for racial integration and a founder of the NAACP, holds schooling in a similar regard to Adler. Du Bois is a fitting voice here given his work in the advancement of civil rights. To him schooling is not only about practical usage: the main point is to become fully human. In his famous essay, “The Talented Tenth” (1903), he addresses the question: what kind of higher education do African-American leaders need?21 Du

Bois states vocational training and political civic change, while important, are not enough. What is most essential is educating human goodness. “If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher

Education which must underlie true life.”22 Similar to Adler, Du Bois argues that at its heart, education must teach students to be fully human. Jobs are not enough. Social progress is only as good as the compassionate and knowledgeable students that our schools nurture. As Du Bois says:

19 Adler, 16. 20 Adler, 18. 21 Du Bois, W.E.B., “The Talented Tenth” The Talented Tenth refers to the social, intellectual, spiritual, economic leaders who guide a society or a race to progress. 22 360, Liberal Arts anthology.

10 “Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men…”23 How do we create the condition for this education? Leisure.

IV. School as Leisure

My Work is Loving the World by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Aristotle argues that the foundation of education is leisure. Education is regulated by law without a doubt, he states, but how it ought to be composed is a different matter. Even in his time there was disagreement about the purpose of education: teach what is useful? Morally excellent?

Intellectual? Aristotle agrees that children should be taught the useful inasmuch as it is necessary.24

23 Du Bois, 365. 24 Barnes, Jonathan. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol. 2, 1984. Bk. 8, ch. 2; 1337b3.

11 But then he posits that the first principle of education is leisure. “Both [work and leisure] are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.”25 Leisure is the first principle of education and hence of politics given that education is under the domain of law.

What is leisure? Although it has contemporary connotations of relaxation, laziness, and inactivity, Aristotle means something different by it. Leisure is not amusement. It is the activity of stillness and wonder. “[Leisure] gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure.”26 The one who has leisure in education is the one who can question and know. It is stillness. Attentiveness. The pleasurable condition of inquiry. Pieper describes leisure as a space characterized “by effortlessness, joy, and peace.”27 He adds that to have leisure is “To perceive all that is unusual and exceptional, all that is wonderful, in the midst of the ordinary things of everyday life.”28 Leisure is the activity of stillness and attentiveness where the ordinary disrupts and propels us to know. If work is the fiefdom of production, leisure is the realm of wonder. Work drives one to manufacture, leisure to marvel. Work craves intellectualism, leisure knowledge. For Aristotle, it is the first principle of education. In fact, leisure in Greek is schole, which is the root of our English word school.

From the beginning, school and leisure were intertwined because the primary purpose of schooling was leisure. Schooling is the fostering of space that allows pupils to ask questions of the world so that they might know. To be in awe of reality that one might understand it. Leisure is not for utilitarian purposes (although it can include practical results). Leisure is for its own sake. It is a condition of the fully human life. As Aristotle says, “[there are] branches of learning and education which we must be study merely with a view to leisure spent in intellectual activity, and

25 Ibid, ch. 3, 1337b34. 26 Aristotle, Bk. 8, ch. 3, 1338a1. 27 Pieper, . 28 Pieper, 102.

12 these are to be valued for their own sake.”29 Aristotle gives the example of music. Music is part of education not for its usefulness or profit, but for its liberation and beauty.30 In other words, a free person should learn certain disciplines because it makes them more human. “To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls,” states Aristotle.31 To be preoccupied with the useful is to be an indentured servant. It is leisure that makes us free. It is leisure that must be the cornerstone of schooling.

Although schooling can prepare one to have a good job, school is not for the sake of work.

Work exists for the sake of leisure, not leisure for work. In other words, we work in order to live, not live to work. As Roger Scruton, a prominent philosopher and public intellectual, comments about leisure: “Work is the means of life; leisure the end. Without the end, work is meaningless— a means to a means…and so on forever, like Wall Street or Capitol Hill. Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival.” 32 To be at leisure is to experience happiness, a fulfillment of human life, a state of joy and peace and clam. School pertains to our happiness and ought to be characterized by joy, peace, and calm. Yes, work and effort are required. A student may be tired, but it is akin to the tiredness an athlete feels while competing in a sport she enjoys. There is peace and excitement as well as exertion and intensity. School ought to be similar. The classroom should be a group of students who learn for the pleasure of it. It is individual intellectual growth while participation in something greater. It is a joy of knowledge. To be stung with confusion and agonize over one’s ignorance, and then to exert and understand something for the first time. Schooling is awakening. It is a sublime feeling that coincides with happiness. Yes, students will leave with job prospects and a

29 Ibid, ch. 3, 1338a10-12. 30 Ibid, ch. 3, 1338a14-30. 31 ch. 3, 1338b2. 32 Scruton, Roger. “Introduction” in Leisure: The Basis of Culture.” Xii.

13 prudent sense for the common good. But they will also come face-to-face with the beauty of literature, philosophy, science, art, language, music, and math. If ten years from now, a student becomes a mechanic and loves poetry, then he or she has been properly schooled. Or one might say, leisured.

School is a summons to stillness. It is an encounter with beauty and an elevation into gratitude. Students should rejoice as they do in other leisurely moments that require intensity, yet the fruit is goodness. Scruton lists many of these times in our lives where we are present to leisure:

“[Leisure] is then, eating a meal among those we love, dancing together at a wedding, sitting side by side with people silenced by music, that we recognize our failure to understand the world.”33 A feast is a fitting example for leisure. An excellent meal requires preparation, organization, and effort; yet the end is conversation, warmth, and satisfaction. Dance requires training, practice, and exertion; yet the end is beauty, delight, and lightness. Music requires patience, dedication, and persistence, yet the end is transcendence, awe, and joy. Leisure encompasses all these experiences.

So must a school.

What ought we to do then? What practically is to be done? Scruton references a famous quip from an American president to a perturbed official: “Don’t just do something: stand there!”34

This response is appropriate for instilling leisure.35 It is creating space for wonder. Wonder ought not to be confused with doubt and skepticism. It can be mistaken to mean questioning that undermines any ability to know truth. Again it is better understood as Pieper defines it: “To perceive all that is unusual and exceptional, all that is wonderful, in the midst of the ordinary things of everyday life.”36 To wonder does not mean to be shocked only at the unusual; in fact, someone

33 Scruton, “Introduction,” xii. 34 Scruton, “Introduction,” xi. 35 Kimball, "Josef Pieper: leisure and its discontents." 36 Pieper, 102.

14 who can only be in awe toward extraordinary and unusual things likely has a deadened sense of wonder. Instead, wonder means to be disrupted by the ordinary. It is to recognize that one does not fully know, but can know more deeply. Wonder is a desire for knowledge. It is a springboard to inquiry as we seek to understand something better. It leads us to the pleasure of learning and the joy of knowing. In short, wonder means to be so enraptured by something that it beckons you to learn and seek and hopefully feel the pleasure of knowing something as if for the first time whether it a Langston Hughes poem or the electrons of a Carbon atom.

School is space for wonder. It is the garden in which we cultivate philosophical discourse.37

Where some pedagogy teaches students a list of facts to memorize for a test, leisure guides students to inquire of a topic for its own sake. As opposed to having students memorize the six characteristics of life in Biology, leisure begins with a virus and proceeds through questions: what are the qualities of a virus? What does it do? Is it living? Why or why not? How do we define life?

Under leisure, science becomes a dynamic, on-going endeavor, not a stale, banal system of facts.

Literature becomes a beautiful story to immerse oneself in, not a moral lesson from which we extract altruistic themes. The difference between leisure and utilitarian education is the difference between two college grads who visit the Met. One walks out in silence, pondering the impressionist and the van Gogh paintings; the other rushes through and checks off the number of famous paintings he took a selfie with. The latter may have seen these paintings, but he did not gaze into them. His activity is not leisure which is the capacity to marvel.

* * *

37 Givoanni Ildefonso, a scholar whose work focuses on leisure and education, states: “Pieper is trying to tell us that we need to cultivate this capacity for leisure, and the message is implied that if the ‘world of total work’ is not providing the opportunity for it, then educators should care to provide opportunities for students to explore their interests and be allowed to wonder.ILDEFONSO, GIVANNI M. "Not a Laughing Matter: The Value of Leisure in Education." Curriculum Inquiry 41, no. 1 (2011): 48-56. www.jstor.org/stable/41238065, 54.

15 A parable. A tutor had three students who were sisters. This tutor departed and left to these three sisters great books, among which the most prized were the collected works of Shakespeare and the collected works of Plato. The eldest read Shakespeare and Plato for their own sake, delighting in their beauty, drama, and truth. The middle daughter read for the sake of changing the world, hoping to construct a more just and democratic society. And the youngest read for the sake of getting a good job, confident that these would make her more impressive than other candidates. Upon return, without being angry with anyone, the tutor said to the two younger sisters: “Thank your eldest sister: without her you would not have been immersed in the best I handed over to you.” Then the tutor said to the eldest sister: “Thank your younger sisters: without them you would not have understood what I entrusted to you.”

Leisure is a condition of stillness in which one can wonder—be disrupted by the usual and the ordinary which propels one to know. A student may enter a classroom and ask: “What use is this?”

School as leisure ought to lead this student to echo Goethe: Zum erstaunen bin ich da. “For wonder

I am here.”

Bibliography

Burbules, Nicholas C. "Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education." Harvard Educational Review 69, no. 4 (Winter, 1999): 456-466. https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F21225 7422%3Faccountid%3D9673.

Friedman, Marilyn. "Educating for World Citizenship." Ethics 110, no. 3 (2000): 586-601. doi:10.1086/233325.

Frum, David. "Cultivating Humanity, by Martha Nussbaum (Book Review)." The Public Interest, Spring, 1998, 105, https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F12981 35933%3Faccountid%3D9673.

ILDEFONSO, GIVANNI M. "Not a Laughing Matter: The Value of Leisure in Education." Curriculum Inquiry 41, no. 1 (2011): 48-56. www.jstor.org/stable/41238065.

16 Kimball, Roger. "Josef Pieper: leisure and its discontents." New Criterion, January 1999, 23. Gale Academic Onefile (accessed December 1, 2019). https://link-gale- com.proxy.bc.edu/apps/doc/A54632177/AONE?u=mlin_m_bostcoll&sid=AONE&xid=ae673e2 2.

Scialabba, George. "Pollyanna and Cassandra." Dissent, Fall, 1998, 128-131, https://proxy.bc.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.proquest.com%2Fdocview%2F22729 2130%3Faccount

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