The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education, Second Edition (Advances in Contemporary Educational Thought Series)

By Nel Noddings

Book Overview

Noddings insists "that our aim should be to encourage the growth of competent, caring, loving, and lovable persons, " a moral priority that our educational system ignores. She argues that liberal education dictates what areas of pedagogy are socially acceptable -- ignoring a student's wider range of abilities. Contrarily, it is precisely the competence for caring, Noddings posits, that will prepare our students for the environment of the school, the world of work, the realm of ideas, and ultimately, for each other.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807731781
• ISBN13: 9780807731789
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Teachers College Press
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The Challenge to Care in Schools

interesting but unrealistic recommendations to change focus of curriculum in education; quotes Dewey quite a bit; easy to read, required for a class

Can caring work in our schools?

Noddings, in this book, addresses some of the issues facing our students in this day and age. She looks at issues of school violence, substance abuse, sexuality, etc. from the perspective of curriculum and provides suggestions on how schools could adress these issues based on the philosophy of caring. Noddings is a reconstructionist in her views but in this book offers concrete examples of how caring could be incorporated into the existing curriculum. Her use of examples helps to clarify her concepts and spheres of caring and why she believes schools need to incorporate care into their curricula. I found her first book difficult to read and did not feel that it made her points as clearly as this book does. I would reccomend this book as an entrance into the discussion of what role alternative views, such as caring, could have in our public schools. For people interested in education, public schools, and how to change our students' experiences for the better, this is a good book to read.