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School of Education commemorates 10 years with lecture from acclaimed scholar, Nel Noddings, Ph.D.

In celebration of the School of Education’s 10th Anniversary, Nel Noddings, Ph.D., Lee L. Jacks Professor Emerita of Education at Stanford University and author of 16 books on education related topics, visited Trinity Western University to give a guest lecture on Care Ethics in 21st Century Education.

“We were delighted to host Dr. Noddings as our featured lecturer for this significant occasion,” said Kimberly Franklin, Dean, School of Education, “The TWU Education Program emphasizes the importance of creating a caring and compassionate environment for learning and Noddings’ work in this area provides an intellectually rigourous foundation and a challenging context for ongoing learning.”

Noddings spent fifteen years as a teacher, administrator, and curriculum supervisor in public schools. At Stanford, she received the Award for Teaching Excellence three times. She also served as Associate Dean and as Acting Dean at Stanford for four years. Her latest books are Educating Citizens for Global Awareness, The Maternal Factor: Two Paths to Morality and soon to be released Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War.

Noddings has been able to demonstrate the significance of caring and relationship both as an educational goal, and as a fundamental aspect of education. Her work has become a key reference point for those interested in reaffirming the ethical and moral foundations of teaching, schooling and education more broadly.

While at TWU, Noddings spoke with a group of senior education students about peace education. “I was very pleased by the responsiveness of the students,” she said.

Expressing that most teachers were, at one point in their lives, good students themselves, Noddings said, “Teachers have long been docile. The teacher’s culture is not rebellious, yet that’s what we need.”

In 1986, Trinity Western’s Education program began as a cooperative degree with Simon Fraser University. It grew to an independent Bachelor of Education degree under TWU’s own School of Education in 2002. Although the growth was not without significant struggles—in 1994, the British Columbia College of Teachers rejected TWU’s proposal for a full teaching program. TWU worked on a case against the BCCT that made it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in TWU’s favour in 2001.

This year, on its 10th anniversary, 268 teachers will have successfully completed TWU’s School of Education teaching program.

Read more about the founding members of TWU's School of Education in issue 19 of Trinity Western magazine.