Human beings love to fictionalize evil--to terrorize each other with stories of defilement, horror, excruciating pain, and divine retribution. Beneath the surface of bewitchment and half-sick amusement, however, lies the realization that evil is real and that people must find a way to face and overcome it. What we require, Carl Jung suggested, is a morality of evil--a carefully thought out plan by which to manage the evil in ourselves, in others, and in whatever deities we posit. This book is not written from a Jungian perspective, but it is nonetheless an attempt to describe a morality of...

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...

When parents are asked what they want for their children, they usually answer that they want their children to be happy. Why, then, is happiness rarely mentioned as a goal of education? This book explores what we might teach if we were to take happiness seriously as a goal of education. It asks, first, what it means to be happy and, second, how we can help children to understand it. It notes that we have to develop a capacity for unhappiness and a willingness to alleviate the suffering of others to be truly happy. Criticizing our current almost exclusive emphasis on economic well-being and...

How can schools prepare students for real life? What should students learn in high school that is rarely addressed today? Critical Lessons recommends sharing highly controversial issues with high school students, including hot questions on war, gender, advertising, and religion."

This book brings together a distinguished group of philosophers of education dealing with important thought often neglected: ideas and concerns in teaching, learning, and teacher education. The authors engage in an extended discussion of the moral dimensions of teaching that leads in a fresh direction, distinct though related, to the important work of Goodlad and others in recent years. Nel Noddings's foreword places the book firmly in current debates about teaching and learning, particularly stressing its importance to teacher education in difficult times. Contributors include Nicholas C....

One of the most enduring and controversial issues in American education concerns the place of individual beliefs and moral standards in the classroom. Noddings argues that public schools should address the fundamental questions that teenagers inevitably rasie about the nature, value and meaning of life (and death), and to do so across the curriculum without limiting such existential and metaphysical discussions to separate religion, philosophy or even history classes. Explorations of the existence of a God or gods, and the value and validity of religious belief for societies or individuals,...

This volume confronts the expected tension between care and justice as moral orientations. The essays, by renowned educators, reveal how these two moral orientations can work together to produce wiser and more practical policies and practices. The authors explore problems at every level of education and tackle tough questions in theory, practice and policy making. Using real-life examples, they illustrate the great value of theoretical collaboration - instead of competing with each other, justice and care can and should work together.

In this collection of essential essays, Nel Noddings examines alternatives to prevailing models of character education - a sympathetic approach based on an ethic of care. Covering both stories in the classroom and controversial issues in education, Noddings describes the similarities and differences between character education and care ethics...examines how moral education might be infused throughout the curriculum...and calls for greater cooperation across fields and more attention to the practical problems of everyday teaching.

In this book, Thornton details why teachers must develop strong skills in curriculum planning and teaching methods in order for effective instruction to occur.

In this volume, prominent educators join Nel Noddings to address the issue of global citizenship, what this means, and how it should shape curriculum and teaching in K-12 classrooms.