The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education

TLDR: The Challenge to Care in SchooL·: An Alternative Approach to Education as discussed by the authors is a good example of such an approach, focusing on ways in which students can be reflective, curious, and caring in all school subjects, with all people, and with our environment.

Abstract: The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education Nel Noddings. New York: Teachers College Press, 2005. 193 pages. ISBN: 0-8077-4609-6Reviewed by Karen A. Heid and Zach KelehearUniversity of South CarolinaMath instruction and learning matter. Science instruction and learning matter. And, to show how much they matter, federal and state policy makers (if we use NCLB mandates as evidence) emphasize that teachers should spend copious amounts of time, energy and money preparing students for standardized assessments of those content areas. One might conclude, in fact, that the more often something is assessed, then the more important it must be.In keeping with this line of thinking, other curriculum offerings that are of value should act and look more like math and science. This tension is also an argument not unfamiliar to some scholats who must negotiate the perceived value between arts-based research and qualitative studies versus quantitative analysis. NeI Noddings, in this recasting of her earlier 1992 work, asserts that what matters most is not a debate characterized as either- or m terms of what part of the curriculum is most important or how often it should be assessed. Rather, she frames the debate about what matters most in today's schools as a measure of how students and teachers can create a context for cultivating care. Whether die pedagogical practice or curricular assumptions be progressive or traditional, whether die subject be mathematics or art, Noddings notes that the essential conversation should be one focusing on ways in which we might help students be reflective, curious, and caring in all school subjects, with all people, and with our environment. It is this notion of what we call the "cult of care" that guides her analysis and discussion in this 2005 edition The Challenge to Care in SchooL·: An Alternative Approach to Education.In this review, we consider three aspects of Noddings' work, with particular attention to their applications to art education. First, we discuss her guiding principles and assumptions regarding the notion of care. Secondly, we reflect on her assertions regarding assessment and the focus on disciplines as related to discipline-based art education (DBAE). Lastly, we detail her view of care as the binding thread for all curricula in a global and democratic society.Noddings establishes throughout her book that care is the sine qua non for authentic learning. And by authentic (our word), she is considering learning where students are collaborators in both the selection of subject and the development of understanding. But for Noddings, care is not a matter of looking after someone or sympathizing with another ... or worse, pitying another. Noddings explains: "An ethic of care embodies a relational view of caring; that is, when I speak of caring, my emphasis is on the relation containing carer and cared-for" (p. xv). It is this bidirectional nature of caring that moves Noddings assertions away from care as solely one person's responsibility.In many ways, Noddings' notion of care requires a major shift in the nature of power and responsibility in school cultures. Can care be something that a teacher brings to a child? Certainly there are many giving teachers who care for their students. Many of us have heard good people, who happen also to be teachers, speak of their love for their young charges. But for Noddings, this notion of giving care is only half of the necessary equation. In order to balance the equation, care must also be reciprocated, and it is the responsibility of the teacher, in large part, to cultivate an environment that supports such an egalitarian context. In order for such an equitable process to emerge, one that certainly reflects notions of a democratic society, teachers must relinquish some of the power and control that many jealously protect in today's classrooms.Reciprocal, egalitarian, openness, honesty, fairness, collaboration, reflection-these and other characteristics are the descriptors of Noddings' school built on care. …