Nel Noddings Quotes

#1. A sense of responsibility in teaching pushes us constantly to think about and promote the best interests of our students. In contrast, the demand for accountability often induces mere compliance.

Nel Noddings

#2. My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others.

Nel Noddings

#3. [S]cience has contributed a great deal to war and violence, and people well trained in science are sometimes not entirely rational and are even dogmatic. We have to find a way to teach reflectively, not just scientifically.

Nel Noddings

#4. If spectacle is lacking in everyday life, it may be because we have forgotten where and how to look.

Nel Noddings

#5. What sort of god would deliberately create a world in which his creatures must eat one another to live?

Nel Noddings

#6. Because most of us recognize that we will fight to protect our children, we cannot be absolute pacifists.

Nel Noddings

#7. The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.

Nel Noddings

#8. It still amazes me that we insist on teaching algebra to all students when only about 20 percent will ever use it and fail to teach anything about parenting when the vast majority of our students will become parents.

Nel Noddings

#9. [W]e would do better to treat terrorists as common criminals, people who have broken the laws recognized by all civil societies. To treat them as soldiers is to increase their power, respectability, and commitment.

Nel Noddings

#10. We Americans pride ourselves on our freedom to speak, to say what we believe. But of what use is it to speak if only those who already agree with us listen? A first step toward the abolition of war is learning to listen with respect and sympathy.

Nel Noddings

#11. On the positive side, a strong sense of comradely loyalty triggers genuine affection and friendship. On the negative side, it may strengthen contempt for the lives of opponents and, of course, the loss of a comrade may be followed by even greater brutality in battle.

Nel Noddings

#12. I do not need to establish a deep, lasting, time-consuming personal relationship with every student. What I must do is to be totally and nonselectively present to the student-to each student-as he addresses me. The time interval may be brief but the encounter is total.

Nel Noddings