This essay considers the intellectual engagement of rural people in the context of their schooling. It argues that rural schooling shares the miseducative purposes common to American schooling in general (i.e., purposes associated with sustaining American global economic dominion). It frames rurally appropriate education as an on-the-ground pursuit of rural alternatives in American life, alternatives explained as the engagement of rural ways of being, living, and knowing—alternatives that only a small minority of rural schools currently embraces. The essay applies the insights it develops about intellectual engagement in rural life to school provisions for academically able rural students. Because gifted students demonstrate a high degree of academic aptitude, the recommendations concern engagement with formal literatures about rural ways of being, living, and knowing.
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