Review Of Moral Education Ideas Of The Caring School

Caring school came into being in the United States in the late seventies' and in the early eighties' of the 20th century.The caring school headed by Nel Noddings put its theory of caring ethics into the practice of school education,and then the beliefs of moral education of the caring school was formed.In educational reform, Noddings criticized the concept centered on reforming methods,and then put forward the blueprint for educational reform based on caring relationship.The caring school advocates the caring values,and takes fostering caring capacity of students as the chief aim of education,then forming a whole system from educational aim,curricuum designing,contents of moral education,methods of moral education to indispensable qualities of teachers. The caring school greatly influenced American educational theory and practice, and gradually obtained popular attention in the world. The aim of the dissertation is to learn from the ideas of the caring school for Chinese moral education.The whole paper is divided into three sections:The first part expounds the historical background,including the emergence of globalization problems,western feminine movement and western social conflicts.Globalization problems concern the common destiny of humans and may be solved on the basis of human caring. So caring values are the social values that are given to moral education by the times.During the western feminine movement, especially the second movement,feminists tried to establish a feminine theory that emphasized the sexual difference in morality. They wanted to form the feminine status in ethics by emphasizing the difference.The caring ideas of moral education is the product of western social problems.Facing the spiritual disintergration that occurred in western society,people began to realize the sense and value of connection and relation and the caring school's thoughts of moral education emerged under the circumstances.It is on these bases that caring school's ideas of moral education arise and become a human moral value pursuit.The second part concerns the caring school's ideas of moral education.After criticizing American educational reform,Noddings proposed that the main aim of education should be to produce competent,caring,loving,and lovable people.In curriculum designing,curriculums aredivided into traditional courses in disciplines, and courses devoted to themes of care.And Noddings advanced a new mode in which several equally valued programs should be established that would include the courses,seminars,and workshops devoted to themes of universal care,and courses in the revised disciplines.Curriculum should be reviewed for growth rather than competition.Continuity is one of the criteria of educational experience. Noddings discussed four continuities in the course of children's education.They are continuity of purpose,continuity of place,continuity of people and continuity in curriculum.The caring-centered contents of course begins with caring for self,then caring in the inner circle,caring for strangers and distant others,caring for animals,plants,and the earth,caring for the human-made world,caring for ideas.The methods of moral education include modeling,dialogue,practice and confirmation.Theses methods are caring-directed, and emphasize the embodiment of caring relathionship.Teachers are required to possess the concept of developing caring ideals,to master the practical criteria for educational care,and be able to apply the methods of moral education.The third part discusses the status,contribution,limitation of caring ideas of moral education and its enlightenment to Chinese education.The author analyses the actual situation of Chinese contemporary education from the caring perspective and thinks of cultivating caring emotion as educational mission and views training of caring-oriented teachers as educational requirement. The author believes that caring should become the first professional talent and that the contribution made by the cared-for to the formation of caring relationships should be re...