Education and the Culture of Democracy With a K-12 Curriculum Outline

As debates over civic education and national identity divide the United States, Robert Mitchell argues that the future of American democracy depends on how schools teach culture, identity, and the sanctity of the individual.
Drawing on the philosophical foundations of ancient Greek democracy, Native American traditions, the American transcendentalists, and President Jimmy Carter's concept of the sanctity of the individual as the spiritual foundation of democracy, Mitchell proposes a comprehensive K-12 curriculum that puts the soul of each student at the centre of the educational mission.
This is not another standardization manifesto. It is a defence of the teacher as the guardian of democracy's most fragile resource: the character of the next generation.