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Stud Philos Educ (2011) 30:529535 DOI 10.1007/s11217-011-9257-4
Jan Masschelein
Published online: 9 June 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract Inspired by Hannah Arendt, this contribution offers an exercise of thought as an attempt to distil anew the original spirit of what education means. It tries to articulate the event or happening that the word names, the experiences in which this happening manifests itself and the (material) forms that constitute it or make it nd/take (its) place. Starting from the meaning of schol as free time or undestined and unnished time it further explores schol as the time of attention which is the time of the regard for the world, of being present to it (or being in its presence), attending it, a time of delivery to the experience of the world, of exposure and effacing social subjectivities and orientations, a time lled with encounters. Education, then, relates to forms of profanation, suspension and attention and can be articulated as the art (the doing) and technology that makes schol happen.
Keywords Education Experimentum scholae Free time Suspension Profanation
Attention World
rvokg9 (Greek: schol): free time, rest, delay,
study, discussion, lecture, school, school building
At the end of her essay What is Authority? Hannah Arendt states that we are confronted anew, without the religious trust in a sacred beginning and without the protection of traditional and therefore self-evident standards of behavior, by the elementary problems of human living together (Arendt 1968a, p. 141). To take up this confrontation means to ask and investigate how to make sense again of such words as freedom or authority, how to conceive of education, culture, etc. These are the exercises of thought that she
This essay could not have been written without Maarten Simons, who is to be seen in a true way and in the full sense as co-author.
J. Masschelein (&)
Laboratory for Education and Society, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University Leuven, Vesaliusstraat 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgiume-mail: [email protected]
Experimentum Scholae: The World Once More But Not (Yet) Finished
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530 J. Masschelein
proposes in Between Past and Future starting from an acknowledgment that, in the strong sense, the meaning of these words has evaporated, leaving behind empty shells. The challenge they present is to distil from...