Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach

by Nel Noddings

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521851882
• ISBN13: 9780521851886
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Ask no questions?

Perhaps the reviewer who critiqued the book for its inquiry into so-called "traditional" values also supports Jerry Falwell's provocative claim that "Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions." Noddings fundamentally challenges this claim and suggests that in many ways, American public schooling at the high school level follows this thoughtless approach: content only, no questions asked. The premise of the book is that our public schools should prepare students for life, not merely the workforce or college. Such an education, she argues, requires a balanced emphasis on both content and critical thinking (i.e. thoughtful judgment). This latter skill requires PRACTICE in the classroom, which can be accomplished by presenting diverse and competing forms of content on a given subject (building a knowledge base from which judgment can proceed), then giving students the opportunity to reason through their reactions or thoughts based on their own values and the possibly competing values of their classmates and teachers. What is perhaps most controversial about the book is that the author also insists that an education geared towards building critical thinking requires a reconsideration of the subject matter currently taught. Importantly, she suggests that students have the opportunity to explore those matters that are likely to affect them most (and most deeply), such as religion, family life, career paths, propaganda, advertising and consumption, health care, military service and war. She does NOT advocate, as one reviewer suggests, a complete abandonment of "traditional" views or practices (as vague and imprecise as this term is), but rather a thoughtful investigation of those views. "Traditionalists" should not fear or discourage such inquiry as Falwell does; if the values upon which the tradition is based are sound, thoughtful inquiry will only serve to strengthen the individual's commitment to retaining that tradition. I agree with one reviewer's complaints that the chapters are overly long and that the title should more clearly reflect its emphasis on high school curriculum. However, in my view this book is an essential read for high school and college educators for demonstrating the necessity of implementing critical thinking skills into content-based coursework. By doing so, we train a future generation capable of thoughtfully analyzing the pros and cons of choices and policies, with the ability to forge new paths when needed rather than blindly following the path already carved by previous generations. Likewise, a careful curriculum that provides students with historical patterns relating to the content at hand may also help them rediscover the fruitful qualities of older, abandoned paths.

A forward-thinking evaluation of positive changes to promote more independence and savvy in future g

Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach by Nel Noddings (Professor of Education, Emerita, at Stanford University) focuses upon the critical thinking skills that modern high schools should be encouraging in today's children. "Know thyself," as Socrates once said, is not merely a philosophical soundbite; Critical Lessons argues passionately that the ability to know oneself and meticulously evaluate propaganda, the psychology of war, the motivations of other people, and platitudes voiced from all walks of life from churches to social groups to political parties to popular culture, is more vital than ever to sustaining a successful and healty modern society. Critical Lessons does not shy away from controversial topics, such as denouncing the concept that a benevolent God and a Hell of eternal torture as a logically impossible conundrum. A forward-thinking evaluation of positive changes to promote more independence and savvy in future generations.