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I'm inclined to see "mind wandering" and "paying attention to things" as reciprocally supportive rather than oppositional. And to see "paying attention to things inside oneself"" and paying attention to things outside of oneself similarly. And, for that matter to see individual and "collectivist" not as alternatives between which one must choose but rather as complements. For more along these lines in a different but related context, see Mental health: a new story in progress? and Mental health: thoughts about the adaptive brain.

Could one perhaps replace "mental health" with "education" in the following ...

"Maybe "mental health" is . ... not something that is a given that we try to achieve, but rather something that is brought into existence and continually revised by our efforts to find commonality in diversity, not only between people but within ourselves?" ... Mental health and the brain: from meaninglessness to meaning?

Which might then suggest some new ways of thinking about the "teacher" ....

"Maybe the general need is to help keep things moving/evolving, sometimes by emphasizing the availability of multiple stories, other times by emphasizing the usefulness of having a particular working story at any given time?" (See Mental health and reality, multiple worlds and following comments)

"Still trying to locate a place for therapy in the bipartite brain, perhaps a place for a therapist too. So I am offering another horse and rider metaphor, where the horse is the unconscious and the rider is the storyteller ... the trainer’s role is to help the horse and rider pair perform better or get their story less wrong. The most important ambition is to increase meaningful communication between the horse and rider." ... A Metaphor