Happiness and Education
Happiness and Education
When parents are asked what they want for their children, they usually answer that they want their children to be happy. Why, then, is happiness rarely mentioned as an aim of education? This book explores what we might teach if we were to take happiness seriously as an aim of education. It asks, first, what it means to be happy and, second, how we can help children to understand what happiness is. It notes that, to be truly happy, we have to develop a capacity for unhappiness and a willingness to alleviate the suffering of others. Criticizing the present almost exclusive emphasis on economic well-being and pleasure, it discusses the contributions of making a home, parenting, cherishing a place, development of character, interpersonal growth, finding work that one loves, and participating in a democratic way of life. Finally, it explores ways in which to make schools and classrooms happy places.
- Author is major figure; her previous books had very high sales
- Fresh approach in this era of high-stakes testing
- Complex ideas are presented in highly accessible way
Reviews & endorsements
"Happiness and Education is especially commended to the attention of public and private school teachers, and administrative policy makers as informed, thoughtful, and thought-provoking reading."
--Library Bookwatch, The Midwest Book Review
"Happiness and Education is ultimately a critique of American culture, not just its educational system. But Noddings shows how the narrow curriculum found in most classrooms helps shape a culture with misguided priorities. Perhaps today's educational leaders would benefit from reading her book and exercising some critical thinking of their own."
--Greater Good
"With her special combination of tenderness and sharpness of vision, Noddings makes us look squarely at some not so obvious truths. Happiness as a goal is much derided, except when it comes to our own lives and our own children. The painful contradictions that we force on our children and their families in order to avoid asking what truly matters are obvious as we confront children in their daily eagerness to find both happiness and meaning--in schools carefully designed not to answer either. Growing up and being educated today takes a very different look when seen through Noddings's careful perspective. Those of us trying to create schools that respond to her questions will read this book carefully many times."
--Deborah Meier, Principal, Mission Hill School, Boston
"Nel Noddings's beautiful book Happiness in Education is an incandescent joy to read. The educational landscape of the past ten years would be a very different one if voices as humane and wise as hers had been more widely heard. I have been hungering for a book like this and am grateful to Nel Noddings for providing it."
--Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities and Ordinary Resurrections
"The most important and influential philosopher on the concept of caring in education, Noddings beautifully synthesizes her admirable corpus in this new book.... In sum, reading Noddings is akin to earning a condensed, invigorating form of liberal education in philosophy, psychology, literature, and theology. Highly recommended."
--Choice
"Noddings' thesis and argument that happiness and education not only can but should coexist must be taken seriously by everyone concerned about preparing children and young adults for a truly satisfying life in our democratic society."
--Catholic Library World
Product details
December 2004Adobe eBook Reader
9780511057564
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Happiness as an Aim of Life and Education:
- 1. Happiness
- 2. Suffering and unhappiness
- 3. Needs and wants
- 4. The aims of education
- Part II. Educating for Personal Life:
- 5. Making a home
- 6. Places and nature
- 7. Parenting
- 8. Character and spirituality
- 9. Interpersonal growth
- Part III. Educating for Public Life:
- 10. Preparing for work
- 11. Community, democracy, and service
- 12. Happiness in schools and classrooms
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index.
