The ancient Greek word schole is usually translated as “leisure,” and it is from this word that we get a number of English words. A school is a place where one can spend hours away from work, devoting that time to a study and unhurried reflection that would be impossible when toiling to meet expectations of productivity in the field or the factory. (Or so goes the idea.) A scholar is a person similarly free from productivity quotas, able to devote the majority of their time to thinking and discussing ideas. Classically, school and scholarship have been the prerogative of a small demographic of wealthy or otherwise socially privileged persons, and this classist history has been well-documented and appropriately critiqued. After all, the liberal…

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