A Schooled Life: Dissonant Glimmers for Interruption Amidst the Tightly Constrained Practice of Schooling

Abstract

Beyond family, school is the next most dominant system within which children and young people live. It is pertinent then to ask what role school plays in children and young people living well in a life worth living in for all. For schooling to enable all to live well, it must be educational. Contemporary agendas have driven separation of education from schooling. Change is therefore needed in school practice to achieve the double duty required for all to live well in a world worth living in. Absence of redesign neglects the well-established problems in dominant school structures. Self-determination theory demonstrates change as essential for schools to have positive impact on the potential for all to live well. Central to such change must be the voices of children and young people to enable transformation. In this chapter, I share aspects from a small project that sought the perspectives of children and young people on what it is to live well in a world worth living in for all, and the role school does, and could, play in this lifelong endeavour. Most significantly, the perspectives shared draw attention to the space to see past the constraints of normative ways to be a school student.