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the current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. — ivan illich, deschooling society

exalted time is also the temporality of schools of higher education. in ancient Greek, ‘school’ is scholé, that is, leisure. schools of higher education would thus be schools of higher leisure. today, they are no longer places of high leisure. they have become places of production, factories of human capital. they pursue professional training rather than formative education [bildung]. formative education is not a means to an end but an end in itself. through formative education spirit relates to itself instead of subordinating itself to an external purpose. — byung-chul han, the disappearance of rituals

to the extent that trees deviate from their natural form, pruning and insect extermination become necessary; to the extent that human society separates itself from a life close to nature, schooling becomes necessary. in nature, formal schooling has no function. - masanobu fukuoka, one straw revolution

it would be a great mistake to assume that renewal is nothing but reorganizing or even juridicial reform. what is needed is not only new rules but new structures and new life. the new life stirs, but faintly, incoherently. it does not know if it can exist without the old structures. what is also needed is a new outlook and new faith in the capacities for modern men to be monks in a new way. then the organization of monastic life can perhaps become less cramped, less obsessive, less narcissistic, and new life can develop with creative spontaneity. this spontaneity should be rooted in living tradition. but living tradition must not be confused with dead conventionalism and futile routine, as it so often has been... authentic renewal is going to demand a great deal of variety and originality in experimentation. - thomas merton, contemplation in a world of action p. 11