ABSTRACT
Whereas strong education delivers the foundational knowledge that enables every generation to take a stand, weak education pulls us out of defensive positions. It is a matter not of understanding but of undercommoning: a distinction I align with that between sciences of the major and the minor. I describe education in the minor key as a patient experimentation that does not so much solve problems as open paths, affording a freedom that is real rather than illusory, grounded in the necessity of attention and commitment to others. This is the freedom of habit. The school in its original sense (from Greek scholè) offered freedom of this kind. It is a middle-place (milieu) of study that calls for active co-presence and affords a collective opening to feeling. In such a place, study can proceed without students having to have things explained to them. What need is there, then, for teaching? The teacher, I argue, is an exemplar, guide and companion who is as involved as his or her students in the potentially transformational process of undercommoning. This could not be further removed from what is currently presented under the rubric of learner-centred education.
