Thank you for the thoughtful essay. As a retired teacher, I am particularly interested in both the practical “how to” of teaching as well as the “why.”
In the US, we can thank Horace Mann for this. He spent his life in government establishing state standards for curriculum and teacher education in order to create “norms,” in a country that was growing too fast for its resources.
Horace Mann also envisioned public education as “the great equalizer;” open to all, rich and poor alike. (Unfortunately, in the US, equal and fair educational opportunities have yet to be realized by an ever growing majority of citizens.)
And yet, I would ague that the purpose of education, public and private, is to create workers that can fit neatly into our capitalist society; creating all sorts of “products” that they themselves consume at higher and higher rates.
Namaste
