Understanding Life in School: From Academic Classroom to Outdoor Education

by John Quay

We've all been to school, so what could be simpler than understanding life in school? The problem is that we take school for granted, accepting it for what it is without asking too many questions. This leaves us tinkering around the edges when it comes to school reform. A deeper understanding of life in school is required, which this book seeks to offer by going to the source of the matter itself - the young people who are in the midst of the day-to-day routines of school life. Much is revealed by contrasting their experiences in academic classrooms and school camp, insights that remain invisible without this juxtaposition. Key to analysis of these experiences is an understanding of life as occupational, constituted through many and various ways of being. This highlights the importance to teaching and learning of addressing the issue of who we are, not just what we know.

187 pages, Hardcover

First published June 24, 2015

About the author

Associate Professor at Melbourne Graduate School of Education