Nell Noddings' Caring Education Theory And Enlightenment

Can the moral ideal of education take as its ultimate limit the democratic principle aiming at common rights in political construction and Taylor's principles upon which economic modernization rests? Post-modern constitutionalism, feminism, and the dialectics between the universality and particularity have carried education researchers' satisfaction beyond the standardized, goals-guided modern education and its achievements to the earnest appeals to education made by millions of heterogeneous students. Against this background, Professor Nel Noddings, the chairwoman of the US Education Association, with twenty years' academic studies, has put forward caring ethics emphasizing individual differences and the effect of teacher-student relationship on the cultivation of students' care consciousness and ability, and furthermore, has shaped her caring-oriented education thoughts. She claims that care-oriented morality should be manifested in every link and aspect of education such as teaching, evaluation, and management, and she has offered detailed suggestions for the implementation of caring education. She also notes that only caring education, which emphasizes students' individuality, specific situations, and true feelings, is education of morality, and only which can breed effective moral education, cultivate the students' moral ideal, make out of the students the carers of responsibility, care consciousness, and care ability, and bring a happy life for them. As far as moral education is concerned, Noddings doubts the cognitive pattern of education of morality dominated by scientism, cognitivism, and male-centered cultural tradition. Her caring moral education theory stresses the respect for each student's life, the emphasis on students' feeling and experiencing, the highlighting of teachers' function as caring models, and the insistence in practicing; meanwhile, her theory has raised four approaches to moral education, namely, modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation. Her thoughts have transcended the dichotomy of rationalism and non-rationalism.Caring education theory offers valuable reference for us to reflect on various non-caring phenomena and to clear up misunderstandings of caring in China's education. This dissertation analyses Laozi's life-maintaining caring thoughts and prior Qin Confucian politics oriented caring thoughts, which have been making dual impact on China's education. After surveying the current theoretical and practical developments on caring education, the paper studies the caring issues in contemporary general and special education in China. The particular person oriented caring theory may correspond to people oriented social, national, and educational policies China is attempting to construct.In brief, the paper holds that caring activities unlabeled as education still is education, whereas caring education is more meaningful, more educative education. Caring to morality is like red cell to blood; morality to education is like blood to human body; special moral education to the morality of other educational aspects, or moral education to the morality of education, resembles the relationship between the heart and blood vessels spreading all over the body. Special moral education is a blood pump, an engine which conveys energy to other organs and make material exchanges with them. If the heart should be cut off from other organs, it will be lifeless, while if any part and process of education should be short of morality and care, it will suffer function obstruction, organ putrescence, and even incapacity or death. The full realization of caring in education is prerequisite for bringing up carers responsible to themselves, to others, to the culture, and the ecologic environment. The essence of education lies in nurturing human life strength, which gives birth to caring sense and caring ability.