I begin with the premise that mind is not a noun, something conferred in its completeness at conception or at birth, but rather a process whose growth is influenced by the ways in which the mind is used. The ways in which it is used is influenced by the culture in and through which an individual lives. I used the term culture. In the anthropological sense a culture is a shared way of life. In the biological sense a culture is a medium for growing things.
Schools are cultures in both senses of the term.
Schools provide the conditions for a shared way of life and they are also cultures for growing things. What they grow, at least what they aspire to grow, are minds. The long term aim of that designed environment we call school is to help children learn how to invent themselves throughout the course of their lives, to become, as it were, the architects of their own education. Given this aim what schools make it possible for students to learn and the dispositions they cultivate are two of its most critical features. In the competition for time and attention the arts have not fared well in our schools.