Schooling, which is shared to the extent that Americans share no other cultural or institutional experience, is perhaps the single greatest influence on how people understand the world around them and their places in it. English instruction, required as it is throughout formal schooling, constitutes perhaps the most powerful vehicle for shaping their sense of themselves as beings-in-the-world. Therein lies the central paradox, schooling, and especially English instruction, offer great possibilities for change even as they are perhaps the greatest obstacles to change. In this article, the author gives his vision for English instruction. His vision emerges from a growing sense of a need for profound change in the face of what David Orr (1992) has called the "crisis of sustainability," that is, "the fit between humanity and its habitat." He also discusses three important things that English educators should know: (1) The crisis of sustainability that is arising from globalization is likely to define their collective existence in the coming century; (2) Formal schooling is not changing; and (3) They already know the most important things they need to know about language and literacy. He believes that if English education is to serve a transformative, Utopian function, if it is to become a vehicle for re-imagining and creating just and sustainable communities that reflect highest ideals for living together on the earth, it will have to address two fundamental sets of questions. The first set focusing on "community" and the second on "literacy." These questions assume that English instruction is part of a wider project of possibility, that it is both an academic discipline and a crucial component of the larger social, economic, and political structures within which people live and work. (Contains 4 notes.)