Overwork is not sensible

One of the nuggets of information I treasure most from my university days came from Terry Jones, during a guest lecture he was giving on the Knight's Tale.  He said, to paraphrase, that in medieval Britain, country labourers worked on average for three months every year; the rest of their time was given to leisure.  I have never confirmed this assertion, but I am happy to believe it nonetheless; and I believe further that such a life is something that we should strive for.  We work too much, and too much of our finite life is spent wishing away the years.  In this context I offer the case studies into teachers' overwork from The Guardian.  Whether their lot seems easy to you or not (lots of people work long hours) it is surely daft to establish long hours of working as a norm, or an expectation in contemporary society.

An Anarchist Education

I won't pretend that it would work on a national scale, but then the exponents are hardly campaigning to have anarchy institutionalised.  Regardless, Matthew Jenkin has something to offer as he considers the links between the Free Schools of the early 1900s and those being developed in contemporary Britain.  Of particular relevance for the enthusiast is allowing young people to grow up as self-thinking, self-thought, other-aware individuals.