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

Rae Pica, author of What If We Taught the Way Children Learn?, asserts that Carol Garboden Murray’s acclaimed book, Illuminating Care: The Pedagogy of Care in Early Childhood Communities “calls on us to have the courage to challenge the notion that care is subordinate to education.”

Garboden Murray writes, “Imagine the difference between the early childhood teacher who treats care as drudgery – and the one who treats care as education and honors care as an intellectual exchange.”

She explains that daily care rituals (eating together, resting, diapering, dressing…) are often mistakenly devalued instead of being honored. “Care is the making of humans. Care is the first lesson of love, connection and dependency. Care rituals demonstrate quintessential whole person learning – the integration of mind, body, heart and soul.”