Reorganising schools as social enterprises: Play schools and gifted education

Abstract

In Mutual Futures, Francis Davis and Nathan Koblintz suggest Catholic faith schools in England and Wales be reorganized into social enterprise zones. Building on that proposal I consider ways of conceptualizing social enterprise school zones so that they can be seen as places where spiritual education and moral education can take place and find support. I do this in the first section by drawing on Aquinas’ metaphysics, and suggesting that participation in social enterprise projects in these ‘play school’ zones can be an opportunity for teachers and students alike to share in the Divine play. In the second section, in the spirit of what some scholars call the later, mystical Aquinas, I consider how being actively part of a social enterprise school zone can help students open up epistemologically to new moral insights, achieving what I call ‘gifted education’, that is, a moral awakening that challenges one’s normative biases and prejudices.