Issues of Caring Noddings Advocates, Essay Example

According to Noddings the main aim of education has to be the production of competent, loving, caring and lovable people. Her outlook on education is nothing short of practical although her theory of caring seems implicitly religious. Schools need to provide necessary skills and knowledge for students in their day-to-day living. Noddings has given two care themes, which can exist in learning institutions. One theme dwells on the organization of subjects around thematic care units. For instance, Noddings writes that we should consider life stages, what it means to come up with admirable character and spiritual growth. She argues that while exploring caring for intimate others topic, we could include units on friendship, love and parenting. She also covers the theme of taking care of others where we can study war, tolerance, and poverty. We need to encourage competence with surrounding machines and embrace a real appreciation for technological marvels in addressing the human-made world.

From Noddings’ articulation for morality in education, we can indeed see a need of moral development in students. This should not start at high school level but at the early childhood stages of education. We should not leave moral development as a duty for the society or community alone. Educational institutions should also play a role in imparting moral development to students. For instance, early childhood education needs to address the child’s moral development, especially the compassionate and caring aspects of morality. Educational institutions have neglected the sense of caring and moral development arguing that homes and not schools should foster them. The teaching of these values does not happen at all. We can find evidence to this by considering attitudes and behaviors of quite a number of adults in the society. We have witnesses recently an increase of people doing wrong in order to move ahead in life. The prevailing culture shows a serious absence of social responsibility. People have an unhealthy compulsion of gaining success at any cost.

In the secondary schools, parenting skills have been neglected. Most of the people become parents but few use academic mathematics as parents. High school students should begin developing a sense of themselves as accepting or rejecting parenting work because it is a challenging, crucial and rewarding work. Students should discuss and read history about childhood and that of motherhood.

According to Noddings, standardized testing has forced students to learn discrete facts, which they forget so soon after the exams are gone. It is not because of the fact that teachers do not teach according to the curricula, but because students do not make connections, which allow them internalize information encountered. Interdisciplinary critical lessons are so crucial to deal with the problem of standardized testing. These lessons can enable students to examine their present as well as future lives.

The ideas postulated by Noddings are realistic, desirable, and suitable for educational needs of children. The present trend of society norms shows a lack of an ‘ingredient’ in the process of imparting knowledge. Children spend a lot of time in schools, and here should be the right place to offer critical life lessons. Emphasizing morality and care themes will bring the much-desired values in our students when they become adults in the society. Standardized testing has become a tradition and getting it out of the system will not be easy. We need educational experts to investigate the issues broadly to bring desirable changes in the pattern of testing. The inclusion of critical life lessons into curricula is another impediment but careful thought and approach in this matter can yield tremendous results.