Reconsidering time in schools: an everyday aesthetics perspective

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to describe and analyse time in schools from an everyday aesthetics perspective. Expanding on current scholarship, the article calls attention to the way everyday sensory experiences in schools models time in peculiar ways that have serious educational implications. On the one hand, based on the work of Katya Mandoki, we discuss how schedules and classroom movements tend to project an ominous sense of time, where students’ sensibilities are neglected in favour of objective, regular and efficient rhythms. On the other hand, based on Yuriko Saito's account of Japanese garden design, we offer an alternative understanding of time that incorporates interruption, delay and ‘unwrapping’ as means to an enriched experience. The article concludes by identifying new questions and pedagogical orientations that contribute to reconsidering how schools teach to perceive, conceive and live time.