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I would like to thank Paul for such a clear and useful statement of the goal and methods of education.  Below I have only slightly complicated it, but I hope it is a useful addition.  The addition I would like to suggest comes from the same well Paul plumbed for his story of goals and methods. It comes from the evolutionary basis of the importance of diversity and its origins.  Paul has eloquently highlighted the importance of diversity created by an underlying process of randomness.  From diversity come the raw materials to create new things – be it new species or be it new understandings.  Yet, something is missing for me in this characterization of evolutionary theory.  Randomness is only half the story.  Randomness does not occur in a vacuum.  Thus, diversity theoretically can come from randomness; it does not empirically come from randomness.   Diversity is always and cannot escape environment – other physical matter as well as other living organisms as well as other stories and cultures when it comes to humans.  Therefore, diversity is more fully accounted for by the interaction of randomness and environment.  When human storytellers see biological change in organisms responding to the environment in which they exist, then we call it adaptation by natural selection.  Likewise, diversity alone in a classroom does not create new understandings.  Differences can exist theoretically, but until there is a problem to solve the differences do not really come into focus.  In this formalization of diversity and environment,  problems, questions and problem-solving is to new understandings as environment is to the generation of biological evolution.  Species do not evolve in a vacuum and new understandings in humans do not arise without a problem to solve.  This formalization also gives us one more benefit.  Differences are great. All differences are useful somewhere and in some context.  But, not all differences (different stories/theories) are equally useful for solving  “A” particular problem.  Therefore, a problem to solve also gives educations a way to adjudicate between stories.

So, below in bold italics, are my alterations to Paul’s goals and methods.  Thanks again Paul for helping me generate so many new understandings.

The goal of education?  

to give everyone the tools to create new understandings, individual and collective, based on co-constructive dialogue?  on open-ended empirical/transactional inquiry? 

The method of education?

encourage diversity, in others and in one's self, and  set up problems and pose questions that give common purpose to the construction of new understandings through open-ended empirical, transactional dialogue/inquiry among the diverse individuals.