Nel Noddings - On Care
A few thoughts about the ideas of Nel Noddings, especially important at this moment in educational time.
One of the biggest influences on me as a teacher, outside of personal mentors, was and still is - Nel Noddings. I wish more educators, especially those in our rather insular field of English language teaching, knew more about her work, research and influence.
I read a LinkedIn post this week about “caring” and thought I’d share with readers some of Noddings’ valuable ideas.
“My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others.” — Nel Noddings
Her ideas about “care” in education stand in stark contrast to our rush toward AI and digital all learning everything and are a stark reminder that a teacher is not just a conduit of knowledge, an administrator of learning or a builder of “skills training” but most importantly, a creative artist pursuing, day in and day out, little by little, the goal of nurturing well adjusted, decent, critical thinking and compassionate citizens.
If you are first dipping into her transformative ideas - a good start is her The Challenge To Care In Schools. An Alternative Approach To Education.
Primary to Noddings is the idea that teaching is first and foremost an act of caring. This is where “relationship” is primary and the first oath, demand, gospel of a teacher is to care for each and every student under their umbrella.
In essence, teaching is profoundly and deeply a moral activity, with moral implications for the future of society through the children in the care of institutions and educators.
The pandemic and now the AI everything hype have thrown a big wrench into the teacher-student relationship, especially in Canada and the US.
Already under attack the past few decades as a more “facts only”, memorize and test, paint by numbers teaching philosophy has blown through education - things have gotten worse in terms of the caring aspect of teaching and learning.
AI is not making it any better. In our race for answers, we are losing something - just like how fruit, if grown too fast, pumped up with artificial everything, turns out tasting bland. Noddings frequently stressed that “education is not a race”, as those promoting AI and its efficiencies, instant everything, fast, fast, poof! push button magic, harp and hype.
I asked the following several years back at a talk I gave. Echoing the questions of the late Ken Robinson about why education is so focused on “the neck up.”
“The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.” - Nel Noddings.
SEL - social and emotional learning has been under attack. But even more to the point, we are allowing schools to become a place that is no longer safe.
We don’t realize how important a role, the school plays as a safe world for so many students. For so many children, school is a shelter from the harsh world they grow up in. It must continue to be so. I spent years teaching elementary students and know this vital role of “shelter” deeply. This quote, written during the age of CD ROM’s as the solution to education, speaks even louder today.
We need to fight back against the use of AI in our classrooms. Otherwise, we are participating in a race to the bottom. I pretend to teach, you pretend to learn.
Teachers are just exhausted. The “humanity”, that caring, that Nel Noddings has so highly championed has flown the coop. I got this in my inbox recently … a good description of what is going on and what has to stop.
My son is nine years old and in Grade 4 here in Toronto. Yes, he is told not to speak during lunch. But it’s more frightening than that for him and his classmates. The kids’ silent lunches are just the tip of the iceberg for their experience with the lunch monitor.
Talking during lunch means detention. Getting out of your chair during lunch, for example to throw something in the garbage, also means detention.
When a kid physically contacts another kid at recess, even to brush sleeves, that’s detention.
This is outdoors, mind you.
Detention these days means you sit with your back to the outside wall of the school, hugging your knees. Six feet apart in either direction from other kids in detention. Outdoors.
If you approach a kid in detention to commiserate, that’s grounds for your own detention.
On my twitter feed, it is daily full of rants, sad commentaries from teachers about how the whole “regime” of punishing students and controlling their behavior is just demoralizing to the core of what is teaching.
More here.
We need to rethink things. The risk, benefit for children weighs on the side of normalcy. Let’s open our schools to love, learning and let them remain bastions of safety and protection for our children. Not dry, draconian digital warehouses for student safe-keeping. Let’s push and embrace the ideas of Nel Noddings.
What a beautiful approach Nel has to education. It’s a shame that not enough people have the same attitude. Perhaps that’s what makes it so beautiful.
Im a pretty young teacher, but it is crazy how quick we went from “They are not allowed on a computer outside of computers class” to “AND YOU GET A CHROMEBOOK, AND YOOOU GET A CHROMEBOOK!”