A perennial challenge for educators, writes Nessel, is one Plato addressed in The Republic: "how to avoid simply feeding students information and instead get them to use their innate capacities and think for themselves." The solution, she says, is not to impose a specific curriculum or method of instruction on all, but to think creatively about the individual situations of students to improve conditions for learning. In this volume she presents a range of perspectives on schools, teaching and learning from writers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Howard Gardner, Elaine Landau and others - all concerned with the development of inquiring minds and critical thinking abilities.