Schooling for Democracy

There is a widespread movement today to prepare all students for college, and it is promoted in the name of democracy. I argue here that such a move actually puts our democracy at risk by forcing students into programs that do not interest them and depriving them of courses at which they might succeed. We risk losing the vision of democracy that respects every form of honest work and cultivates a deep appreciation of interdependence

Critical Thinking

Ten years ago, I wrote an article for the Journal on helping students to think. The topic is even more important today because critical thinking appears as an important educational aim all over the world. Yet we rarely spend much time talking about what it means to think critically and the difficulties we experience trying to teach it. In this article, I will explore four facets of critical thinking and its purposes: developing a critical eye, searching for meaning, reasons why we engage in critical thinking, and the need for moral commitment as we think critically

Helping Students to Think

Perhaps the best way to provide a safe, secure, and nurturing school environment is, first, to outlaw personal attacks of any kind (this seems to pass constitutional muster) and, second, to help students to think critically so that they are not such easy prey to propaganda—political, economic, or religious

Noddings, Nel, NIE\u27s National Curriculum Development Conference, pp. 291-312 in Jon Schaffarzick and Gary Sykes, eds., Value Conflicts and Curriculum Issues: Lessons from Research and Experience. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan, 1979.

Gives an overview of the conference themes, its reports, problems identified, and views of the participants

Starting at home: caring and social policy

Nel Noddings, one of the central figures in the contemporary discussion of ethics and moral education, argues that caring--a way of life learned at home--can be extended into a theory that guides social policy. Tackling issues such as capital punishment, drug treatment, homelessness, mental illness, and abortion, Noddings inverts traditional philosophical priorities to show how an ethic of care can have profound and compelling implications for social and political thought. Instead of beginning with an ideal state and then describing a role for home and family, this book starts with an ideal home and asks how what is learned there may be extended to the larger social domain. Noddings examines the tension between freedom and equality that characterized liberal thought in the twentieth century and finds that--for all its strengths--liberalism is still inadequate as social policy. She suggests instead that an attitude of attentive love in the home induces a corresponding responsiveness that can serve as a foundation for social policy. With her characteristic sensitivity to the individual and to the vulnerable in society, the author concludes that any corrective practice that does more harm than the behavior it is aimed at correcting should be abandoned. This suggests an end to the disastrous war on drugs. In addition, Noddings states that the caring professions that deal with the homeless should be guided by flexible policies that allow practitioners to respond adequately to the needs of very different clients. She recommends that the school curriculum should include serious preparation for home life as well as for professional and civic life. Emphasizing the importance of improving life in everyday homes and the possible role social policy might play in this improvement, Starting at Home highlights the inextricable link between the development of care in individual lives and any discussion of moral life and social policy

Noddings, Nel, Curriculum and Moral Education, pp. 91-92 in Nel Noddings, Educating Moral People. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002.

Introduces the author\u27s views on incorporating moral education into the curriculum; details appear in subsequent pages

Noddings, Nel, Gender and the Curriculum , pp. 659-684 in Philip W. Jackson, ed., Handbook of Research on Curriculum. New York: Macmillan, 1992.

Reviews historical aspects of educating women and men as well as the 20th century curriculum situation and transformative endeavors