Others and Freedom for Those Who Have Experienced Non-Attendance at School

Using Sartre’s Thought on “Play” in Being and Nothingness as a Guiding Framework

Abstract

In order to understand the recovery process for those students who have experienced non-attendance at school, the author has been conducting fieldwork at a private part-time and correspondence high school (hereafter called “X high school”). In X high school, those students who have experienced school non-attendance are “good children” and at fi rst deny “mischievous” students. Soon, however, the former accept the latter and get along with them. Such acceptance is a necessary step in overcoming the experience of school non-attendance. According to Sartre, while I live in the world, I throw myself toward my future possibilities and fi nd all things as tools for realizing those possibilities. However, while I live in the world, I live with others. I can, on the one hand, objectify the others and use them as tools at my own will. On the other hand, the others can also objectify me and use me as a tool at their own will. Therefore, while I live with others in the world, I have to display certain behaviors following a role as a tool for others. Of course, I can choose whether to display those behaviors or not, because I am free. Due to the fear of being condemned by others, those students who have experienced non-attendance at school often completely curtail their own freedom and choose to be “good children.” Through the life at X high school, they realize that they will not be condemned even if they act like “mischievous” students. Thus it becomes unnecessary for them to deny their own freedom and to behave as “good children.”