What should be taught in schools? How should we teach it?

I came across (via Yuvaraj) a very thought provoking paper titled An Education for the Future: The Foundation of Science and Values by Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University. Anyone with an interest in education should read it.

To summarise, Gardner says while there is a consensus on the importance of education (he is focussing primarily on pre-college education or school education in his paper), there is no comparable agreement about

The first dilemma: What should be taught?
What should be highlighted: facts, information? data? If so, which of the countless facts that exist? Subject matters and disciplines--if so, which ones? Which science, which history? Should we nurture creativity, critical thinking? If there is to be an additional focus, should it be arts, technology, a social focus, a moral focus? If you try to have all of these foci, you would break the backs of students and teachers, even given a demanding elementary and secondary school curriculum. If knowledge doubles every year or two, we certainly cannot multiply the number of hours or teach twice as quickly. Some choice, some decisions about what can be omitted, is essential.

or

The second dilemma: How should we teach?
Even if we could agree on which emphases should be adopted, one must still determine whether to teach all subjects or all students the same way, or to individualize the curriculum for each student or groups of students. How much emphasis should there be on computers, distance education, various media? What should be the role of home, school, the church, the media, or extra-curricular activities? How much responsibility should be placed on teachers, students, peers, parents, the wider community? Issues of pedagogy/instruction turn out to be as vexed as issues of curriculum/content.

Gardner argues that in making these two decisions, we should depend primarily on two foundations or bases: the science of learning, and our own values as human beings living in communities, and suggests ways in which we can build on both.