A Richer, Brighter Vision for American High Schools

Nel Noddings advocates a unifying educational aim of producing better adults and presents strategies to achieve this in high schools.

Nel Noddings (Author)

9781107427914, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 May 2015

211 pages
22.6 x 15 x 2.3 cm, 0.33 kg

'… brilliantly written throughout and comprehensive in scope …' Choice

In today's high schools, education is often reduced to a means of achieving financial security, leading to an overemphasis on quantifiable measures of performance. This approach encourages academically talented students to focus on test scores and rankings rather than intellectual enrichment, and discourages students with non-academic talents from pursuing them. A Richer, Brighter Vision for American High Schools advocates instead a unifying educational aim of producing better adults, which would encompass all aspects of students' lives: intellectual, physical, moral, spiritual, social, vocational, aesthetic, and civic. Nel Noddings offers suggestions to improve high schools by increasing collegiality among students and faculty, enriching curricula with interdisciplinary themes, renewing vocational education programs, addressing parenting and homemaking, and professionalizing the teaching force. This thought-provoking book will act as an important guide for teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and policy makers.

Introduction
1. Unity of purpose
2. Vocational programs
3. What might have been: women's traditional interests
4. A better adult: continuing the search
5. Parenting
6. The Common Core Standards
7. Critical thinking
8. Collegiality, caring, and continuity
9. The curriculum and its setting
10. Planning, enacting, evaluating
11. The professional preparation of teachers
12. Reflecting on the brighter vision.

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology [JM], Sociology [JHB], Philosophy [HP]