Spaces In-between

Here's an "essential question" for us all. Is childhood--unrestrained playing,fighting, crying, jumping, sticking-your-hand-on-the-hot-stove, laughing, running, falling out of trees, building friendships, losing games, winning games, making up the rules--the raw material for formal education? Or, are we wasting time that would be better spent improving knowledge, skills, and "education"? Maybe both.

Fundamentally, for me, I don't give a Rhett Butler about any research. This really isn't a research question; it is a question that touches on the philosophical questions of the "good life". Do we really, as a society, want to return to child labor, but in the factory of the school, in place of the textile mill? Having liberated childhood from a natural labor supply for the family, do we want to hand over childhood as a labor supply for the state?

In reality, it is probably both the raw material for formal education and wasting time. Not everything related to learning how to ice skate on a frozen creek, for example, has practical, utilitarian application in the classroom. But it really doesn't matter. A humane view of life requires the time to simply be, without reason and without excuse. A time to jump around and do cartwheels simply because it's fun.

So, ok, I get that the summer break has a traditional purpose in the farming cycle; Christmas break gives time for traveling and being together as a family. And, I'm sure there is a lot of living during these times away from formal school that provides lessons and raw material for the classroom. But really, it is just space to be. I don't give assignments over breaks or vacations [unless it is inescapable] for the simple reason that I don't believe that breaks/vacation times are simply education by another means. It really is just space and time.

I need it too.