The original meaning of the word “education,” according to its Latin roots, is to lead out or bring forth that which lives within the human being. To truly educate is to nourish the unique and unfathomable possibilities that each child introduces into the world. Many teachers and most parents know this and, as individuals, seek to encourage the distinctive potentials of the children in their care. However, just as our understanding of human development is conditioned and constrained by a culture’s worldview, education is always shaped by a culture’s understanding of the child’s place in society, and of the human being’s place in nature and the cosmos.