Robert Mitchell

Nurturing the Souls of Our Children: Education and the Culture of Democracy Robert Mitchell

Nurturing the Souls of Our Children presents an eloquent argument for teaching a culture of democracy in our K-12 schools. What is a culture of democracy? The great experiment that is the United States of America is, in fact, a grand historical experiment in the creation of just such a culture out of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious society. Thus, the culture of democracy transcends divisive group identities and the political ideologies of democrats and republicans so that the country can be governed in the name of WE THE PEOPLE, the only viable governing body for the United States. Creating such a cultural identity goes beyond teaching fundamental utilitarian skills so that a young person can fill his or her slot in the economic structure. It requires a bonded relationship between students, parents and teachers that I call a sacred trust, because one of its fundamental objectives is personality development in the child--where personality derives from the holistic development of mind, body, soul and spirit. This holistic development of the personality of the child was the primary goal of educating young people in the two most formidable examples of a culture of democracy to influence the birth of this nation: the ancient Greek democracies and the Iroquois League of Native Americans.The appendix presents an outline for a complete K-12 cultural education curriculum that explores, with young people, the foundations of a culture of democracy and how this concept has evolved out of the cultural continuum of humanity. The main emphasis of the core cultural education curriculum comes in the 6th through 11th grades.