Nel Noddings is an American educator who studies moral education, care ethics and much more. In her book; Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education she argues in chapter eight, Moral Education, the one-caring teacher is a necessity to the education of ethics. Through referencing and critiquing work by John Dewey and other well known educational theorists Noddings supports her claims.
Noddings’ inquiry asks the question, “What would schools be like under the ethics of caring?” (Noddings 185). To teach ethically one must care first (181). The kind of care Noddings explains is rooted in relation to students thoughts, behaviours, attitudes and performance. The educator stands in the position of the one-caring, meaning they receive the student in a relationship of respect and to put the individual person before the material(186). Inclusion plays a large role in the one-caring’s ideals as students are met directly (187). She further discusses changes to practices that would aid the care ethics model like grade organization, subject matter, evaluation and more.
My next steps in exploring Nel Noddings discussion would be exploring critiques and advancements to its purpose. Sarah Hoagland argues against Noddings care ethics in her review, Review: Some Concerns about Nel Noddings’ “Caring” . Rodger Bergman on the other hand asks tough questions in order to draw out the conversation on Nodding’s ideas, most applicable to my analysis being, “How can education contribute to the moral life of students?” (Bergman 1).
Bergman, Roger. “Caring for the Ethical Ideal: Nel Noddings on Moral Education.” Journal of Moral Education, vol. 33, no. 2, 2004, pp. 149–162.
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia. “Some Concerns about Nel Noddings’ ‘Caring.’” Hypatia, vol. 5, no. 1, 1990, pp. 109–114.
Noddings, Nel. Caring : A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. 2nd ed., 2013.
I really liked the quote on to “teach ethically one must care first”. It really eludes to what the subject of your paper is going to be about. However, I did think that the grammar could be revised as you had a run on sentence in the beginning. I also enjoyed how you ended your write up with determining your analysis.
I like the idea of ethical education, it really shows that students need respect as well, and are people more than they are individuals who must learn a curriculum. Your post is quite informative and helpful for information. What are some of the changes in practices you talked about? I like how you chose to use quotes as well.