The maze and the labyrinth: Walking, imagining and the education of attention

This chapter argues that walking offers an alternative model of education that, rather than instilling knowledge in to the minds of novices, leads them out into the world. Technically, the maze differs from the labyrinth in that it offers not one path but multiple choices, of which each may be freely made but most lead to dead ends. It has been to assert the primacy of the maze over the labyrinth, and of mastery over submission. The conventional definition of education as instilling knowledge and the sense of education that people have explored here, as a leading out into the world, lies the difference between rich methodology and what Jan Masschelein calls poor pedagogy. The notion of methodology belongs to the maze. If a rich methodology offers their ready-made knowledge, poor pedagogy opens minds to the wisdom of experience: it pertains to the time of schole, not to the institution of the school; to the labyrinth, not to the maze.