School

One of the most speaking ironies in the evolution of society is that the origin of the word ‘school’ is ancient Greek schole, which means ‘leisure’. School in this sense was the most important part of life. Once the necessities had been dealt with, people in ancient Greece (here ‘people’ usually, I’m afraid, almost exclusively meant men) got on with what gave life its true value: meeting friends over food and wine, chatting, going to the gym, to the theatre, to the agora to debate issues of the day, to the shade of olive trees to discuss philosophy. Aristotle said, ‘We educate ourselves so that we can make a noble use of our leisure’. Not ‘to get a job’, note; but to enjoy leisure more richly.

The contemporary world, and a good deal of modern history beforehand, has turned this on its head. Leisure now has the paradoxical nature of being recognised both as a necessity, because unless people have a chance to rest they are less efficient, and sooner or later burn out, but also as a grudging concession – weekends and two weeks annual leave are regarded as sufficient. The economic machine is not geared to let people out of its clutches for longer, and the overwhelming bureaucracy of modern life – taxes, bills, forms, the legal obligations of citizenship in general, plus paying the costs associated with it all, given that almost everything we eat, wear, do and have costs money – keeps people tied to a relentless pulling of the machine’s levers.

For some, maybe for many, what fills the bulk of our days, viz. the work we do, can be a source of satisfaction and meaning. If so, good. One can enjoy one’s work, one can be ambitious and keen on advancing one’s career, one can value what the remuneration for work provides – a home, a holiday, a laptop, a music centre, a car, some jolly nights out. At the same time there can be a surprise in store for anyone who stops to think whether the job they do adds real value to the world, whether consumer goods are really worth having, whether conventional norms are really worth observing – or whether what people fall into in the way of doing and having in contemporary society are a distraction, somewhat along the ‘bread and circuses’ line, from something which, on closer inspection, might turn out to be much more valuable intrinsically. What that is will depend on the individual thinking about it, for, as Socrates taught us, ‘the meaning of your (individual) life is what you (individually) make it.’ His point is that the one-size-fits-all model of what is regarded as a worthwhile life (nowadays: get some qualifications, get a job, get married, get a mortgage and a pension plan, have some kids, climb the ladder a least some way, see the kids off on the same route, retire, potter, die) might not be, so to speak, it.

In discussions about the possibility that AI might displace so many jobs that tens of millions will be pushed into permanent retirement at an early age, the question arises: what will everyone do with themselves? Answers drawn from our current conception of what the unemployed and the retired do with their time don’t seem very compelling. Yes, a lot of retired people enjoy gardening, hobbies, volunteering, enjoying the grandchildren, travelling if they have the means. The question relates to whether half or more of the population doing this from the end of adolescence onwards might feel quite the same satisfactions; after all, retired folk are enjoying a contrast with decades of getting up every morning to go to work, and many of them might feel that, having done their bit, leisure and its opportunities are a reward. But we are pondering what it would be like for those with no bit to do, who never have or have never had a bit to do. As things are currently set up, they – or at least many of them – are going to face challenges. For as Huxley (Henrietta, not Thomas Henry) said, ‘A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes’. Moreover, mischief, it has also been pointed out, finds work for idle hands.

Which brings us back to Aristotle, and an opportunity to wax polemical. We do not see education as he did. We do not educate for leisure. We do not equip people with knowledge about and an appetite for art, literature, a knowledge of history and other climes and cultures, for ideas, for an informed appreciation of nature, for relationships of all kinds, for emotional intelligence, for life skills and hacks; instead we stop short at enough numeracy and literacy, and these days especially IT literacy, to supply the economy’s needs. We otherwise teach – here getting even more polemical – in the most forgettable ways possible, a mere skimming of other things, to the extent that history and literature – which provide the essential framework for understanding the human universe – are practically non-existent or anyway provided in such short measure as to be meaningless. We educate (if that’s anyway the word: ‘train’ would be more accurate) for the economy, for work, and leave it up to people – if they have the will, if they have any idea where to start, and if they have enough energy left over from work – to educate themselves afterwards.

Some (many, actually) think that social media are making matters worse, shortening and fragmenting attention spans and staying determinedly at the most superficial and facile of levels. There is agreement, rightly, that it is an urgent need to develop critical thinking skills – because the ability to evaluate and assess the tsunami of information, so much of it misinformation – on the internet is an existential matter for our societies (not least: for our democracies). But we also need to foster a capacity for more sustained and deeper thinking, for long-form reading, for rich memories. These were acquired, in fact just absorbed, as a matter of routine in education as it once was, when the employment agenda had not swallowed the entire process in its insatiable maw, and was as much a matter of passing on culture as it was about anything else.

And that was not such a long time ago, either. In choosing what to study at ‘A’ Level and university fifty years ago I did not give a moment’s thought to the job market, but solely to my interests, and it was the same for most of my contemporaries. We were more Aristotelian then. If the AI gloomsters are right, it will become necessary again; but it should happen anyway.