The Challenge To Care In Schools: An Alternative Approach To Education

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.

Nel Noddings is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education Emerita at Stanford University.