A Case for Inserting Community into Public School Curriculum

This essay contends that there are fundamental connections between a nation’s political arrangements and its educational efforts on behalf of youth. Though the common school architects of the nineteenth century recognized these connections, they were profoundly forgotten in a later Darwinian milieu that suggested—our allegiance to democracy notwithstanding—that the business of statecraft is best left to the most “fit.” This essay argues that to fully shrug off lingering vestiges of Darwinism, we need a new educational narrative, one premised on inserting community as a central curricular feature in the nation’s public schools.