| Abstract: | This essay explores certain inherent psychological tensions and contradictions that shape the subjective experience of school life. Describing the dynamic relationship between experiences of idealization and disillusionment, the paper discusses the opportunities schools have to support the growth of students and teachers by facilitating developmental processes of reparation and recovery. The essay both follows the narrative of a series of events that occurred in a high school sociology class and outlines three concepts—axis of variation, the school romance and the live creature—to illuminate for administrators and teachers how the school can promote development by understanding the complex ways that passions organize, and, at times, disorganize, the life of a school. |
