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Chuck Carney
IU School of Education
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Last modified: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

"Happiness and Education," a presentation by Nel Noddings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 17, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Nel Noddings, professor emeritus at Stanford University and author of seminal works in educational theory and philosophy, will make a presentation titled "Happiness and Education" at the Indiana Memorial Union in Bloomington on Thursday (Nov. 19) from 4:30 to 6:15 p.m. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be in IMU's Oak Room.

Nel Noddings

Nel Noddings

Noddings is known for many books including Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education and Philosophy of Education. She promotes the concept of "ethics of care," an argument that caring should be a foundation for ethical decision-making. A book of the same title as her presentation, Happiness and Education, came out in 2003. The book explores how teaching might change if we placed happiness as a serious goal for education.

"The most important and influential philosopher on the concept of caring in education, Noddings beautifully synthesizes her admirable corpus in this new book," wrote a reviewer in "Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries." "In sum, reading Noddings is akin to earning a condensed, invigorating form of liberal education in philosophy, psychology, literature and theology."

In 2007, she published When School Reform Goes Wrong. A new book, The Maternal Factor: Two Paths to Morality, comes out next year.

A former elementary and high school mathematics teacher and administrator, she has served on the faculty at Stanford, Colgate and Columbia University. Her many professional honors and achievements include the presidency of the National Academy of Education from 2001 to 2005 and numerous lifetime achievement and outstanding educator awards from education organizations across the country.