Talk on ‘Public Schools in Peril’ April 22

2:42 p.m., April 14, 2005--Nel Noddings, Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education Emerita at Stanford University, will deliver the 2005 spring David Norton Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m., Friday, April 22, in 125 Clayton Hall Conference Center. The event is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

Noddings will speak on “Public Schools in Peril: A Threat to Democracy?” Her lecture will explore the current movement for standards and accountability, which some critics say is designed to discredit public schools and pave the way for privatization of education, which, in turn, may threaten our democracy.

Noddings spent 15 years as a teacher, administrator and curriculum developer in public schools and was director of the Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago. While at Stanford, she received the Award for Teaching Excellence three times and served as associate dean and acting dean.

She has served as president of the Philosophy of Education Society, the John Dewey Society and the National Academy of Education. She has received honorary degrees and awards, including the Anne Rowe Award for contributions to the education of women from Harvard University. She has published extensively and written 13 books, including Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy; Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education; and most recently Happiness and Education, published by the Cambridge University Press in 2003.

The lecture is supported by the David Norton Memorial Fund, honoring the late professor of philosophy who joined the UD faculty in 1966 and died in 1995. Cosponsors include the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, the Department of Philosophy, the Class of 1955 Ethics Endowment Fund, the Delaware Interdisciplinary Ethics Program and the Makaguchi Foundation.

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