Leisure time

Free time. Unoccupied time. Does one have to wear a leisure suit to experience leisure?
I have enjoyed a few months off of responsibilities to lead a casual life of scheduling at my convenience.
Well. Not exactly. I still have a day job. But how great it has been to have some choice in November as to how I spend my time.
Do people who are tied to a 40-60 hr week job like to read about other lifestyles that are not constrained by the responsibilities and commutes of working stiffs?
I know, my friends who are self-employed "work" too... times are hard- I am sure they would prefer not to have as much 'leisure' time.
I read of Facebook friends collecting unemployment benefits and read of their travels and exploits of their "free" time.
It is natural to think of time when the world is pausing to reflect on the passage of time.
A decade. A year. Gone.
I long to have leisure time to write more, garden more, landscape, think, work on art projects, train dogs, organize the piles of clutter that accumulate.
2011 marks a way point on my journey to a new lifestyle of less scheduled time,but more "work", I hope. As in good work or right work.
Hope for a future filled with right work.
Sadly I leave the world of public education with a cynicism that has made my light of hope sputter and nearly fade away.
For most of my life I have focused on making a difference, supporting a paradigm shift in American education. Status Quo reigns.
Our system of education is woefully antiquated. Our practices are legacy of an agrarian society and an industrialized society.
Most people think that students are supposed to sit in a class and listen.
Yet I know of very few adults who can sit in a room and listen to each other.
The model of learning is "I tell and you listen." No wonder grownups have lost the art of meaningful dialogue or the lost art of conversation.
Instead we listen to the rampages of radio show talk hosts who are hardly educated at all.
The results of our public education system are masses of unemployed and/or people who listen to eccentric loud mouths spewing opinion over the air waves.
Daffy Duck sputters inaccurate drivel, inciting rage, not insightful reflections.
So it goes.
Until public educators change the notion that learning is nothing more than showing up to class and sitting in a chair to listen to a teacher, we will not have a populace of critically thinking, reflective people.