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    Essentialism As A Philosophy and As A PH PDF

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    Essentialism values the "essence" of objects, which describes their permanent, unalterable attributes. As an educational philosophy, essentialism believes certain basic skills and knowledge are essential to teach. It emerged in response to perceived problems with progressivism. Essentialism emphasizes teacher-centered instruction in core subjects like reading, writing and math. It aims to produce disciplined, socially responsible students and preserve common culture. While it provides a stable foundation, essentialism is criticized for being too rigid and not developing student creativity.

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    Essentialism As A Philosophy and As A PH PDF

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    Annastassia Stewart
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    Essentialism values the "essence" of objects, which describes their permanent, unalterable attributes. As an educational philosophy, essentialism believes certain basic skills and knowledge are essential to teach. It emerged in response to perceived problems with progressivism. Essentialism emphasizes teacher-centered instruction in core subjects like reading, writing and math. It aims to produce disciplined, socially responsible students and preserve common culture. While it provides a stable foundation, essentialism is criticized for being too rigid and not developing student creativity.

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    Essentialism values the "essence" of objects, which describes their permanent, unalterable attributes. As an educational philosophy, essentialism believes certain basic skills and knowledge are essential to teach. It emerged in response to perceived problems with progressivism. Essentialism emphasizes teacher-centered instruction in core subjects like reading, writing and math. It aims to produce disciplined, socially responsible students and preserve common culture. While it provides a stable foundation, essentialism is criticized for being too rigid and not developing student creativity.

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    Essentialism As A Philosophy and As A PH PDF

    Uploaded by

    Annastassia Stewart
    Essentialism values the "essence" of objects, which describes their permanent, unalterable attributes. As an educational philosophy, essentialism believes certain basic skills and knowledge are essential to teach. It emerged in response to perceived problems with progressivism. Essentialism emphasizes teacher-centered instruction in core subjects like reading, writing and math. It aims to produce disciplined, socially responsible students and preserve common culture. While it provides a stable foundation, essentialism is criticized for being too rigid and not developing student creativity.

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    of 6

    PHILIPPINE NORMAL UNIVERSITY

    The National Center for Teacher Education


    Taft Avenue, Manila

    COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND


    TEACHER EDUCATION RESEARCH

    Critical Analysis on
    ED501 – Philosophy of Education

    ESSENTIALISM:
    As a Philosophy and as a Philosophy of
    Education

    Presented By:

    Mr. JO-NATHANIEL G. VALBUENA


    MAEd – Curriculum and Instuction

    Presented To:

    Dr. GUILLERMO Q. ROMAN, JR.


    Professor
    PART I - INFORMATION

    Essentialism as a Philosophy

    Essentialism as a Philosophy values the “essence” of each object. Essence can be defined as the

    attribute, or set of attributes that make an object what it fundamentally is, and must have. This

    essence describes a permanent, unalterable and eternal object. Without its essence, an object

    loses its identity.

    Essentialism from the Different Points of View

     For the idealists, the abstract property of the object is its essence.

     For the realists, the essence of the object is the object per se. This essence categorized

    these objects.

     For the existentialists, the essence of the human nature is eternal, and unchangeable.

    Essentialism as a Philosophy of Education

    It is backed by the belief that there are certain basic skills, arts and science that are essential.

    These set skills and knowledge are essential in the PAST and are likely essential as well in the

    FUTURE.

    History of Essentialism in Education

    The main proponent of essentialism was William Bagley, a professor of education at Columbia

    University’s Teachers College. This idea of Bagley, emerged during the 30’s, as the state of

    American education is deteriorating, as compared to other countries (Gutek, 1990). Moreover,

    Bagley identified the cause of this problem was the emergence of progressivism, which he

    described as “essentialy enfeebling”. Likewise, this idea again resurfaced during 1950’s such as

    Bestor to criticize a new educational theory called “life edjustment” which focuses on personal and

    social skills over academic skills.

    ESSENTIALISM: A Philosophy and A Philosophy of Education 2


    By VALBUENA, Jo-Nathaniel G.
    What do we teach in Essentialism?

     For Elementary – the 3R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic)

     For High School – History, Mathematics, Science, Language and Literature

     For College – Liberal Arts and Sciences

     Stresses Discipline, Respect for Authority and Nationalism

    How do we teach in Essentialism?

     Essentialist views as teachers as models of discipline, socially-aware and masters of both

    content and culture.

     Teaching must take place in a well-organized and disciplined environment.

     Mastery of the subjects requires diligence and effort in the part of the learner.

     Curriculum must be carefully structured

    Why do we teach in Essentialism?

     SOCIETAL – The goal of the education is to produce students that can be responsible

    enough to participate effectively in the society. For the essentialist, it agrees that the school

    is an essential social institution BUT, it does not agree that societal changes should be

    initiated by the school. However, the school should prepare the students to solve the

    societal problems by providing literacy and skills from a “socially aware” teacher.

     LIFE-LONG, GENERATIVE LEARNING - Students can be prepared to learn higher, more

    complex subjects. The essentialists focus on basic subjects which start from the basic,

    increasing its complexity.

     CULTURAL – To preserve and transmit the essentials of the common culture, and develop

    Patrimony.

    ESSENTIALISM: A Philosophy and A Philosophy of Education 3


    By VALBUENA, Jo-Nathaniel G.
    PART II - ANALYSIS

    I. Essentialism against Other Educational Philosophies

    Essentialism and Perennialism

    Perennialism and Essentialism are much more interrelated to each other, since it both agrees that

    schools should develop the students’ rational and moral powers (Salandanan, 2012). They mutually

    believe that strategies should be teacher-centered, and does not allow students’ interest to dictate

    teaching. With this, we can conclude that both of them are traditional, both in the What and Why’s

    of teaching. The only difference, is that Perennialist focuses more on teaching the “Classics” and

    more philosophical in nature, as compared to the Essentialist who gives stress on basic skills and

    knowledge. Moreover, perennialist stresses on personal development first, as matched to the

    Existentialist, which focus on the development of essential skills of the learner.

    Essentialism and Progressivism

    Existentialistm and Progresivism is far more different to each other. For progressivist, teachers

    should not focus on teaching universal truths or a particular body of knowledge but must educate

    the learners based on their interest (Salandanan, 2012). Thus, we can conclude that, on a

    progressivist point of view, it is the learner who determines his/her own pace of learning, and is the

    focus of the curriculum, while essentialism centers on the mastery of skills, regardless of the

    interest of the learners. Teachers were viewed by the progressivist as facilitators of learning, and

    the information should come from an actual experimentation (learning by doing). This contradicts

    the idea of the essentialist which views the teacher as an expert of his/her field, who is the source

    of knowledge by the students. Nonetheless, both philosophies accentuates that the goal of the

    education is to produce citizens that can responsibly, and actively participate in the society, which

    is, for the progressivist, is a democratic one, and for the essentialist, a disciplined one.

    ESSENTIALISM: A Philosophy and A Philosophy of Education 4


    By VALBUENA, Jo-Nathaniel G.
    II. Criticisms on Essentialism

    From its definition and terms, essentialism is indeed a very teacher-centered one. It stresses that

    teachers should be the source of knowledge and that students are just passive receivers of

    information (Ondego, ). Students are forced to learn a body of knowledge and are expected

    to meet up with the standards set by the teacher. Furthermore, essentialism gives importance on

    traditional basic subjects, minimizing contemporary and creative subjects. This poses a threat that

    students trained under an essentialist point of view will lack creativity, since the learners were never

    given a chance to express themselves. Learners, also tend to lack adaptability in a fast changing

    world since they were taught traditional basic knowledge.

    On the positive side, essentialism brings stability in education (Ondego, ), since it focuses

    on a conservative and consistent subject areas which are already stable. Moreover, since

    essentialism focus on basic instruction, it gives the learner a stable and strong foundations of

    knowledge needed in a more complex subject. This idea helped the curriculum developers to

    structure the subject matter in a generative manner, starting from the basic education during the

    primary years, it gradually improved to complex subject. Furthermore, essentialism does not

    stressed only in basic skills and knowledge, but most importantly, Character, Discipline and

    Nationalism. Education under the essentialist point-of-view would yield into disciplined and

    responsible individuals who upholds the rule of law, and has a deep sense of nationalism in their

    mind, heart and in action.

    ESSENTIALISM: A Philosophy and A Philosophy of Education 5


    By VALBUENA, Jo-Nathaniel G.
    References:

    Gutek, G. L. (1990). Philosophical and Ideological Perspectives on Education. Boston: Allyn and

    Bacon.

    Salandanan G. G., et. al (2012). The Teaching Profession. Quezon City: Lorimar Publishing.

    Mastin, L. (2008) “Essentialism”. http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_essentialism.html

    (Accessed April 18, 2016)

    Ondego, J. ( ) “Education and Essentialism”.

    https://www.academia.edu/7740986/EDUCATION_AND_ESSENTIALISM_by_JOSEPH_OND

    EGO (Accessed April 18, 2016)

    Wikipedia. “Essentialism”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism (Accessed April 18, 2016)

    Wikipedia. “Educational Essentialism”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_essentialism

    (Accessed April 18, 2016)

    ESSENTIALISM: A Philosophy and A Philosophy of Education 6


    By VALBUENA, Jo-Nathaniel G.

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