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Title: Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education by Nel Noddings ISBN: 0-8077-4168-X Publisher: Teachers College Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Very theoretical moral and character education...
Comment: Nel Noddings has written a very persuasive book from a feminist perspective about how to bring children into the feelings, concerns, and behaviors of moral people. Her writing is lucid, frank, somewhat elevated, and 'not the usual stuff' of educational theory. This is a thoroughly academic book.
Noddings proposes an 'ethic of care' as the basis upon which all moral education should take place. Central to this ethic of care is open-ended dialogue ('What are you going through?'), and discussion of a topic (i.e., not simply a 'conversation'). In giving someone our attention, we care for them and promote an ethical discussion.
She believes strongly that we live in a climate of violence, such that many children do not feel cared for and have no continuity in their care, so caring for these children and adolescents is itself part of the youngster's moral development (i.e., learning how to receive care).
She also believes that the structure of secondary education (organized around subject matter, not around students or their questions) militates against providing a moral education.
Her writing has a pessimistic tinge to it, in that she believes that coercion of students into particular subjects (against their will, in math, for example) is counter-to-moral caring. This 'coercion' puts Noddings firmly into the progressive-liberal post-modern feminist educational camp, and opposed to any sort of back-to-basics, learn-the-fundamentals education.
Despite her liberal slant, she has many good points, e.g., 'Children today need desperately to know how to care for themselves and for intimate others'.Instead of tackling the subject of human life and love holistically, schools respond to various crises with drug education, sex education, and violence prevention courses' (p. 33). Uniquely among modern educators and many politicians, Noddings writes that ''education cannot be the route out of poverty for everyone [because] poverty is a social problem, not an educational one' (p. 94)'-which is a very refreshing take on the moral basis of American educational policy, and which conventional persons might think to be elitist (in the sense that the popular myth of education is that it is the one fair route out of poverty). Her main goal of education is to raise 'competent, caring, loving, and lovable people' (p. 99)
Other than her clarion call for moral education in schools, I am not sure that I liked this book, partly because Noddings dismisses so much of existing moral and character education as being fruitless, coercive, or capable of being coercive. Readers who wish to have specific directions on how to implement a caring classroom will be disappointed because there are very few practicalities addressed in this largely theoretical book, other than the notion of using a modern caring feminist perspective in moral education. Yet, like good moral questions, in reading this book you have to think about the topic, and Noddings does bring us to consider what we mean by 'moral' and 'character education.'
Rating: 5
Summary: It's easy to miss the point
Comment: Nel Noddings is presenting a new way of thinking about morality from a feminist postmodern perspective. She is grounding her "caring alternative" in an understanding that relationships are fundamental to all human beings from the day we are born. It is in contrast to the individualistic "character education" and development of the past. We learn morality and develop in community. It's about building an environment where "caring" can occur and being aware that in order to "care," the "carer" has to listen and learn about what feels like "caring" for the person being "cared-for". It's also about the mutuality of relationships making it hard to tell who's the "carer" and who's the "cared-for."
Sometimes teaching rules makes us shrewd not good.
Rating: 2
Summary: Of course
Comment: Nel Nodding's writings deserve praise in that she is among the first contemporary scholars to tell us about the importance of a caring curriculum for children. It is also nice to say that if we learn to care, this is better than the didactic forms of authoritarian compliance oriented character education going on in most of our schools. However, an entire book to say this may not be what we need. Also, not once in the entire book is their any reference to caring about Nature. To anthropocentrize the concept of caring is dangerous in these times when our environment is catestrophically deteriorating.
If you are inclined to want to know why her ideas are different than the Christian leaders of character education, then I suggest you buy the book. If you already agree that caring, spirituality and a more balanced, holistic view of the world is what you want, see my own book on Teaching Virtues at www.teachingvirtues.net for a practical application.
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Title: Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Second Edition, with a New Preface by Nel Noddings ISBN: 0520238648 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 02 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education (Contemporary Educational Thought) by Nel Noddings ISBN: 0807731773 Publisher: Teachers College Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Happiness and Education by Nel Noddings ISBN: 0521807638 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 07 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy by Nel Noddings ISBN: 0520230264 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Bringing in a New Era in Character Education by William Damon ISBN: 0817929622 Publisher: Hoover Institution Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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