leisurely blog loop

I know that bloggers are not supposed to get into too many blog loop posts, but I was reading the EdTechie post that starts " John recently posted about Bertrand Russell and his essay 'In Praise of Idleness'," and some thoughts occurred.

I have been involved a couple of discussions lately about leisure-time reading and how ideas about reading for pleasure play out in adult literacy programs and for adult literacy learners. Some of us literacy workers start from a place where we think of leisure-time reading as an honourable and desirable way to engage with culture. Some of us, after working in the field a while, move to a place where we wonder if the whole concept is a middle class construct and one that we impose on literacy learners in a way that is invisible to us but very visible to them.

EdTechie, in pondering what Russell would make of Web 2.0, cites this quote:
"The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief."

So I am thinking that it is time to rethink some of my ideas about leisure time, reading for pleasure and class. If only I had the time. Maybe I should get off the blog loop for a bit.