Product Description
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…. More >>
Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach
#1 by CrimsonGirl on January 29, 2010 - 7:37 pm
I wrote a review of this a couple weeks ago but for some reason it never posted. Perhaps Amazon felt I was being overly critical of the author?
The premise of Dr. Noddings’ book is that public school teachers should use controversial topics to stimulate “critical thinking” in students. She would like high schools to be more like universities in this regard since a sizable percentage of students never attend college. Interesting idea, however universities (particularly elite ones like Stanford where Dr. Noddings taught) are not exactly friendly to the full diversity of viewpoints. It is clear by “Critical Lessons” that Dr. Noddings’ aim is to induce skepticism towards viewpoints with which she disagrees and to indoctrinate impressionable young minds into accepting her own agenda.
The clearest example of this is in the treatment of religion in “Critical Lessons”. Dr. Noddings (a humanist) is very hostile towards organized religion, in particular Christianity and most especially traditionalist denominations such as Fundamentalism and Catholicism. The book contains much misleading information about Christian beliefs and Dr. Noddings distorts the historical record when it suits her purpose. For example, Dr. Noddings notes that there has been much debate among theologians over when exactly the soul enters the growing fetus and it wasn’t until the 19th century that Catholic doctrine held that it happened at conception. However, there is NO mention of the Catholic Church’s clear and consistent record of opposing abortion dating all the way back to the Didache written in 90 A.D.! Why does Dr. Noddings leave out that very important point from her discussion? I suspect because it undermines her political agenda…
There has been a lot of discussion about whether Christians should remove their children from government schools. Any Christian considering public education for his/her children ought to read “Critical Lessons”. Dr. Noddings is highly respected by the educrats, and she is out there promoting hostility towards Christianity and traditional beliefs about marriage & family.
For the record, “Critical Lessons” also promotes pacificism to the extreme of demonizing individual servicemembers, vegetarianism and so-called “animal rights”, narcotics use, gender as a “social construction” rather than biologically determined, and poverty as societal failure rather than the result of poor choices by the individual.
Rating: 3 / 5
#2 by K. Mann on January 29, 2010 - 8:27 pm
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.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by James Charnock on January 29, 2010 - 9:34 pm
Well, I tried my best–and with high expectations, considering the interesting title–to read the whole book, but mostly I plodded along. I found my interest waning after lengthy Chapter 1 (all chapters are lengthy), except for the chapter on teaching about religious thought (or not). I could only bear a little over half the book. Noddings has a way of taking a good idea–I agree with her philosophy (see review below)–and voluminously expanding it beyond necessity. One big mistake of the book is that the last chapter, “Preparing Our Schools,” is at the end instead of in the beginning of the book; it is more interesting than the Introduction. Such repositioning may, perhaps, motivate others to read more than I could. Finally, although it may not sell as many books, I think the book’s front cover title should be more reflective of, and honest about, its content. That is, she is addressing HIGH school teachers and curriculum developers–yes, yes, I know, it does mention this on the inside flap; nevertheless, the front title should read: “…What our High Schools Should Teach.”
A Non-Workbook, Non-Textbook Approach to Teaching Language Arts: Grades 4 Through 8 and Up
Rating: 3 / 5
#4 by Midwest Book Review on January 30, 2010 - 12:31 am
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.
Rating: 5 / 5