Live Simply

Does 'schooling' encourage conformity?

After reading the article There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers by Hadot (2005), I began reflecting on the values and ideals I stress as important within my classroom. Hadot (2005), discusses the distinction between what it means to be a philosopher as compared to a professor of philosophy. Hadot (2005), argues that professors of philosophy are “content with theoretical discourse [and] encourage men to keep living in an absurd manner” (p.230). He goes on to say that the “life of these philosophers is pure conformity” (p.230), while true philosophers live simply and deeply.

I started to wonder…”am I living the life of pure conformity? Am I encouraging my students to live the life of conformity?”

As a Western teacher, I inadvertently bring the Western ideal of success into the classroom - you need to be highly educated, you need to earn a high salary, you need to be able to afford a house and luxuries such as a car, television, etc. We encourage approaches to teaching and learning that are in line with an individualistic culture, whereby the notion of ‘I’ is emphasized over “we” and success is measured by where you stand in relation to everyone else. We paint a picture that this is not easy work and you must put in the effort to reach the top. This reflective process brought me to this video  Life is Easy. Why do we make it so hard?

Jon Jandai (2012), like Haddot, sees the importance of living simply and deeply. He argues that we should should not conform to Western views of success and instead be philosophers that live simply, reflect and explore creative alternatives to attaining success as defined by ourselves. He mentions that ‘schooling’ was not of value to him, that it was making life harder for him than he thought it needed to be. He believes that ‘schooling’ took time away from the time he should have been spending on himself. He argues that “we need to connect to ourselves and to other people rather than be independent and driven only by money (00:12:30).

This shed light on the importance going back to the basics. What do we need to live simply and deeply. As a teacher we need to afford our students more opportunities to live like philosophers. We need to allow them time to be with themselves and reflect on what is important to them. We need to encourage creative and innovative thought and place less emphasis on conformity.

References:

Hadot, P. (2005). There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers (J. A. Simmons, Trans.). Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 19(3), 229 – 237. Doi: 10.1353/jsp.2005.0021

Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard? | Jon Jandai | TEDxDoiSuthep. (2011). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21j_OCNLuYg