Welcome to Not Being in School

The No School University of School has just flung open its conceptual doors, and is willing to acknowledge the concept of students for its inaugural not having of classes. The No School University of School is not a formal school, offers no promises of learning, and shrinks from the responsibility of your betterment.

The No School University of School does, however, have this blog. No one else has this blog.

And also, we (I) have some ideas. To be more exact, I have one idea: walking. Walking is the current curricula of The No School University of School. By walking, I mean getting from one place to another in a leisurely, open-air, and hopefully observant manner. So, the first (and likely only) class offered by The No School University of School is about walking.

The class on walking shall proceed as follows:

1. Anyone may enroll. To enroll, you need not do anything. You are enrolled.
2. Anyone may dis-enroll. No one cares if you dis-enroll. It's up to you.
3. If you enroll, you should consider reading the two course texts: Charles Baudelaire's "The Parisian Prowler," and Bruce Chatwin's "The Songlines." These books are about walking. The first one is a key text in the flâneur movement. The second one is not. If you do not want to read these books, that's fine. No one cares. If you want to read other books, feel free. You may share the names of those books on the blog, or you can keep them to yourself. It's up to you.
4. The course will run for one month, and will consist of reading (or not reading) the somewhat assigned books, and then going on four walks. You may choose not to walk if not walking suits you better than walking. Who are we to say.
5. After each walk, you are invited to post your thoughts on the blog. We understand that you might forget to do this. Our policy on forgetting is to look the other way.
6. What should you write about? Anything. We encourage you to be exploratory, discursive, randy, self-reflective, garish, philosophical, concrete, anything. We'll get you started, though, with four prompts, which you may choose to address or ignore completely.
   
7. The blog will be ready to accept posts on July 6, 13, 20, and 27th. After that, however, the class won't necessarily be over.

You might have some questions about being affiliated with The No School University of School. We probably won't answer them. But we can say that we are operated by an actual instructor of higher education. This instructor has taught quite a few classes over the years, but would rather read a couple of books and go for 4 walks. You are invited to join in. So begins The No School University of School.

Welcome to having to do what you want.