“Gripping and enduring interests frequently, and in respect of the higher interests almost always, grow out of initial learning efforts that are not intrinsically appealing or attractive.” William Chandler Bagley

Consider as a conservative educational theory that was developed in

opposition to progressive education, essentialism rooted philosophically in

both idealism and realism. Essentialism emphasizes an academic curriculum

of subjects and encourages teachers who stress order, discipline and effort.

For essentialist, the important aims of education are: 1 to transmit the basic

skills and knowledge found in the cultural heritage; 2 to emphasize the

learning of those skills and subjects that can lead learners to still higher level

skills and knowledge; and (3) to use education as a civilizing knowledge and

values of the past and the requirements of the presents (Ornstein & Levin,

1985)

Until the 1930’s, essentialism continue to be overshadowed by

progressivism in any explicit philosophic formulation. It was criticized as

being too rigid to prepare student adequately for adult life. Professor William

C. Bagley of Teachers College, Columbia University is generally regarded as

the modern day father of the essentialist educational philosophy. In 1938, an

organization known as “The Essentialist’s Committee for Advancement of

Education” came into being. William C. Bagley, although not regarded as a

professional philosopher, he consider himself a realist and appreciated the

importance of a philosophic grounding for education. The label “essentialist”

was coined by the idealist Michael Demiashkevish who cooperated closely

with Bagley in the committee. (Brameld, 1955)1

For essentialist the aim of education is to prepare the students to be

productive, contributing members of society. For them, the young need the

essentials to live well in the modern world, To instil in the students the

“essentials” of academic knowledge and ensures the accumulated wisdom of

our civilization as taught in the intellectual disciplines. Such intellectual

discipline may include History; Mathematics; Science; Language and

Literature. (Gutek, 1988)

Arthur Bestor also a leading essentialist of the fifties believed that

liberal arts and sciences were the core of a general education which would

enable men and women to function intelligently. (Gutek, 1988)

“The Soviet Union launch of the Sputnik satellite humiliated the United State which had fully expected to be first nation into space. American blamed the public education system for not producing enough sufficiently talented scientist and engineers to propel the United State into outer space ahead of its then-enemy.

Educators responded by developing a more intellectually demanding curriculum. The math, sciences and reasoning skills fostered in the essentialist curriculum proponents claimed, would produce the scientists, engineers and technology workers who would defend and protect the United States from outside threats. Students’ intellectual trainings became a critical weapon of nationa defence. To this day, most American high schools continue to rely on an essentialist curriculum”. (Kaplan & Owings, p.170)

The national security panic about the schools failing that it led them to

study the nation’s educational standing, the prominent April, 1983 report on

American education, from the National Commission on Excellence in

Education entitled A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform

reported U.S. children lagged behind other nations’ achievement level when 2

it came to basic subjects. It conclude that public school needed to improve

their teaching and improve students’ skills in basic areas like reading, writing

and science. Wide support for “back to basics” curriculum followed. (Kaplan

& Owings, 2011)

One of its educational principles is that guidance of the immature

student should come from a well-educated and cultured teacher. Generally

essentialists view the teacher as the most important, most knowledgeable

person in the classroom. Therefore, it’s no surprise that essentialist seem to

show common methodological preference for the lecture method. They avoid

methodological frills and soft pedagogy and concentrate proven instructional

methods. (Ornstein & Levin, 1985)

Its main concepts focus on essentials of academic knowledge and

character development. (Gutek, 1988) According to essentialist perspective,

school focus should be very subject centered, academic and mentalistic.

Essentialism embraces a subject–area methodology. This is the oldest

and most widely known organization structure for education. Its foundation

lies in the seven liberal arts of classical Greek and Roman education:

grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

Modern day subject-area curricula can be traced to the work of William

Torrey Harris, superintendent of the St. Louis school system from 1969 to

1880 (Dhawan, 2005)

The essentialist classroom urges that the most essential or basic

academic skills and knowledge be taught to all students. Traditional 3

disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and

literature form the foundation of the essentialist curriculum. Essentialists

frown upon vocational, adjusted, or other courses with "watered down"

academic content. (Dhawan, 2005)

Students from elementary level receive training skills such as writing,

reading, measurement and computers. Even while learning arts and music,

subjects that are most associated with the development of creativity, the

students are still required to master a body of information and basic

techniques, gradually moving from fewer complexes to more complex skills

and detailed knowledge. Only by mastering the required material for their

grade level that a student will be promoted to the next level. (Dhawan, 2005)

If essentialists are against unconventional way of learning, what are

they approve of? An excellent description of the essentialist conception of

the school was given by John A. Ciardi, associate professor of English at

Rutgers University

“Assume, for example, that you want to be a physicist. You pass the great stone halls, of say, MIT, and there cut into stone are the names of the master scientists. The chances are that few of you will leave your names to be cut into those stones. Yet any one of you who managed to stay awake through part of a high school course in physics, knows more about physics than did many of those great makers of the past. You know more because they left you what they knew. The first course in any science is essentially a history course. You have to begin by learning what the past learned for you. Except as a man has entered the past of the race he has no function in civilization.

And as this is true of the techniques of mankind, so is it true of mankind’s spiritual resources. Most of these resources, both technical and spiritual, are stored in books. Books, the arts, and the techniques of science, are man’s peculiar accomplishment.

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When you have read a book, you have added to your human experience. Read Homer and your mind includes a piece of Homer’s mind. Through books you can acquire at least fragments of the mind and experience of Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare—the list is endless. For a great book is necessarily a gift: it offers you a life you have not time to live yourself, and it takes you into a world you have not time to travel in literal time. A civilized human mind is, in essence, one that contains many such lives and many such worlds. If you are too much in a hurry, or too arrogantly proud of your own limitations, to accept as a gift to your humanity some pieces of the minds of Sophocles, of Aristotle, of Chaucer—and right down the scale and down the ages to Yeats, Einstein, E.B. White, and Ogden Nash—then you may be protected by the laws governing manslaughter, and you may be a voting entity, but you are neither a developed human being nor a useful citizen of a democracy.

I think it was La Rochefoucauld who said that most people would never fall in love if they hadn’t read about it. He might have said that no one would ever manage to become a human if he hadn’t read about it.

I speak, I am sure, for the faculty of the liberal arts colleges and for the faculties of the specialized schools as well, when I say that a university has no real existence and no real purpose except as it succeeds in putting you in touch, both as specialists and as humans, with those human minds your human mind needs to include. The faculty, by its very existence, says implicitly: “We have been aided by many people, and by many books, and by the arts, in our attempt to make ourselves some sort of storehouse of human experience. We are here to make available to you, as best we can, that experience.”

Basically the student role in an essentialist school is to listen and learn.

The individual child’s interest, motivations and psychological states are not

important (Gutek, 1988)

Also it is crucial to mention that in an essentialist classroom, students

are taught to be "culturally literate," that is, to possess a working knowledge

about the people, events, ideas, and institutions that have shaped society.

Reflecting the essentialist emphasis on technological literacy, A Nation at

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Risk recommends that all high school students complete at least one

semester of computer science. (Ornstein & Levin, 1985)

Reflecting on its conservative philosophy and traditional approached to

schooling, it has become apparent for the researcher that most schools in

the Philippines use essentialism theory.

The Philippine educational system is patterned after the American

system, school are classified into public (government) or private (non-

government). Basically public schools in the Philippines are 90% traditional

they are teacher centered, have isolated curriculum (subject are taught

separately), product oriented, skills are learned thru repetition, concepts are

presented as facts to memorize, have quantitative evaluation (numerical

testing) and have bigger class. The general pattern of formal education

follows four stages: Pre-primary level (nursery and kindergarten) offered in

most private schools; six years of primary or elementary education, followed

by four years of secondary or high school education. College education

usually takes four, sometimes five and in some cases as in medical and law

school, as long as eight years. Graduate schooling is an additional two or

more years. (Whitman & Aldinger, 2009)

Essentialism implication in Philippine education is clearly seen from

basic to secondary education. Traditional and rigorous practices of lecture,

question and answer, discussion, recitation, use of textbooks and mastery of

facts reflect its influences. (San Mateo & Tangco, 2003)

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Contrary to the American’s article A Nation at Risk the researcher

conclude “back to basics” curriculum is not enough to help the Philippine

economy become affluent and to make our graduates globally competitive.

We have been using the back to basic curriculum long enough, it’s now time

for our government to reform its educational system.

It is comforting to know that such action is already on its starting point.

The article “DepEd Now Ready to Implement K+12 Basic Education

curriculum” By Rainier Allan Ronda tells: 

With more than P31-billion increase in its budget for 2012, the Department of Education (DepEd) is now ready to implement its ambitious K+12 basic education curriculum (BEC) plan.

“DepEd intends to address the current requirements and shortages in the next two years so that it can focus its resources in latter years towards addressing the significant resource requirements for the full implementation of K+12 in 2016,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said.

“The DepEd is both heartened and challenged by the administration’s support for the program, especially through bigger budget allocation for the department at P238.8 billion next year from this year’s P207 billion.”

The program aims to address deficiencies in elementary education as well as enhance the competitiveness of the high school curricula. Officials said the program is designed to help students adjust to the fast-changing demands of society by providing graduates with essential skills for local or global employment or for college education.

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References

Brameld, Theodore 1955. Philosophies of Education in Cultural Perspective. United State of America: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Dhawan, M. L. 2005. Philosophy of Education. India: Isha Books

Gutek, G.L. (1972). A history of western educational experience. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press

Kaplan, Leslie S. & Owings, William A. 2011. American Education Building a Common Foundation. United State of America:Wadsworth.

Ornstein, Allan C. & Levine, Daniel U. (1985).Foundation of Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Whitman, Cheryl Vince & Aldinger, Carmen E. 2009. Case Studies in Global School Health Promotion:From Research to Practice. USA: Springer Science + Business Media

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=759261&publicationSubCategoryId=63

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