Dewey went to great lengths to explain why such openness and flexibility are not anti-intellectual, but in fact promote a more active and engaged intelligence than that produced by forced, rote learning. Child-honoring and democracy go together, and a culture that is authoritarian toward its children will eventually become, if it is not already, authoritarian toward all but the most elite of its members. It is revealing, I think, to look at the No Child Left Behind program, with its relentless testing and rigid control of learning, in this light. I have heard NCLB referred to as “Childhood Left Behind,” which seems to me a troublingly accurate description. And if childhood is left behind, so too is our essential personhood.