GMUS 601 Teaching and Learning

A philosophical argument for an ethics based on natural caring, as in the care of a mother for her child.

Noddings argues that public schools should address the fundamental questions that teenagers inevitably rasie about the nature, value and meaning of life (and death), and to do so across the curriculum without limiting such existential and metaphysical discussions to separate religion, philosophy or even history classes.

This book explores what we might teach if we were to take happiness seriously as a goal of education.

Nodding asks: If we celebrate the success of women becoming more like men in professional life, should we not simultaneously hope that men become more like women-in caring for others, rejecting violence, and valuing the work of caring both publicly and personally?

Noddings argues that while schools can do little to reduce the economic and political causes, they can do much to moderate the psychological factors that promote violence by helping students understand the forces that manipulate them. From publisher description.

Philosophy of Education introduces students to the evolution of educational thought, from the founding fathers to contemporary theorists, with consideration of both analytic and continental traditions.

Noddings offers suggestions to improve high schools by increasing collegiality among students and faculty, enriching curricula with interdisciplinary themes, renewing vocational education programs, addressing parenting and homemaking, and professionalizing the teaching force.

Nel Noddings argues that caring--a way of life learned at home--can be extended into a theory that guides social policy.

he emphasis is on the use of critical thinking to understand and collaborate, not simply to win arguments. The authors describe how critical thinking that encourages dialogue across the school disciplines and across social/economic classes prepares students for participation in democracy.

Nel Noddings uses her extensive experience at every level of schooling to challenge the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).