Identifying and responding to needs in education

Do educators know what children need? Most of the school curriculum is supported by the assumption that educators and policymakers do indeed know what children need, and the curriculum is designed to satisfy these inferred needs. In trying to meet inferred needs, however, we often neglect the expressed needs of our students. Sometimes, of course, we rightly fear that expressed needs are mere momentary desires and that they should be curbed and replaced by the important needs we have already identified. But often, by ignoring expressed needs, we sacrifice opportunities to develop individual talents, intrinsic motivation, and the joys of learning. In this article, I explore the nature of needs and ways in which schools might better identify and respond to them. I start with a brief discussion of care ethics because it, in contrast to the dominant ethics of justice, gives attention to needs before moving on to matters of justice.