ESSENTIALISM AND PERENNIALISM

Submitted by:
Salazar, Ruth, A.

EDFD 241 (51392 Thu 2:30-5:30 PM)


1st Semester, AY 2019-2020
Prof. Abigail Thea O. Canuto

September 11, 2019

I. Essentialism

Essentialism’s Roots from Idealism

According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, it is an educational theory that ideas

and skills basic to a culture should be taught to all alike by time-tested methods. As a
philosophical theory, it ascribes the ultimate reality to essence embodied in a thing
perceptible to the senses. An essense is something permanent, real, the ultimate nature
of a thing.

Essentialism is rooted or grounded in the philosophical orientations of Idealism and

Realism. (Kessinger, 2010)

Essentialism’s View of Education

Essentialism emphasizes the basic skills and knowledge such as reading, writing,
arithmetic (3Rs), science, and history. It adheres to the major idea that there are core or
essential subjects or disciplines that should be studied. The role of the teacher in an
essentialist education is to transmit the values and knowledge that students would need
in order to become effective citizens. It is teacher-centered in contrast to the
progressive movement of child-centeredness.(Kessinger, 2010)

The essentialist tradition would have a stricter discipline and rigorous academic
standards. Essentialists believe that the public schools have declined and that there is a
need to return to stricter discipline to study the basics. Mastery of the subjects is very
important, thus, testing is also used in assessment. An essentialist program would then
teach children from less complex skills to more complex skills. (Kessinger, 2010)


Essentialism Across Time

It first appeared in the 1930s in the United States. The proponents of essentialism were

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William C. Bagley, Isaac L. Kandel, Arthur Bestor, Hyman Rickover, James Bryant
Conant, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Diane Ravitch, and various governmental commissions in the
United States (for example, the 1983 President’s Commission on Excellence in
Education).


An Essentialist's Platform (1930s) by William Chandler Bagley

William C. Bagley (1874–1946) began a movement in 1938 that called for intellectual
training in schools instead of “child growth and development.” He argued that education
requires hard work and attention as well as respect for authority. He also stressed the
logical sequence of subjects and called for a "back to basics" movement to improve the
academic standards. He argued that in progressive education, the practices were "too
soft and placed less emphasis on dealing with educational basics such as mastery of
the three R’s and established facts." (Kessinger, 2010)

Dr. Bagley obtained his Ph.D. in psychology and education in 1900 from Cornell
University. Afterwards, he took his first school job as Principal in St. Louis, Missouri
Elementary School. While working in Montana State Normal School in Dillon, Montana,
he decided to dedicate his time to the education of teachers and where he published
The Educative Process. In April 1938, he published the An Essentialist's Platform, in
which he outline the three major points of essentialism:
1. The right of students to a well-educated, caring, and culturally knowledgeable
teacher.
2. The importance of teaching the ideals of community (democracy, democratic
culture) to each group of students.
3. The importance of accuracy, thoroughness, persistence, and good
workmanship on part of the students in the classroom.

He also believed that liberal arts material was important in teacher education and that
dominant theories of education at that time were weak and lacking. He wanted these
dominant theories complemented or replaced with a philosophy that was strong, virile,

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and positive. On the other hand, he also supported both the academic disciplines and
certain basic tenets of Progressive education. (Net Industries, 2019; Bagley, 1938)


Bestor’s Curriculum of Intellectual Disciplines (1950s) by Arthur Bestor

The essentialists returned in force by the 1950s and exerted anti-progressive

sentiments through the Council for Basic Education under the leadership of Arthur
Bestor. He wrote, Educational Wastelands: The Retreat From Learning in Our Public
Schools, also considered an essentialist publication. Together with Hyman Rickover,
they attacked the progressive ideas in public schools and deplored the lack of
developed minds of the students (USA). They favored the European type of education
that focused on the basics and would lead the students to become better prepared to
enter an intensive and rigorous professional or technological program of study. It was
also during this time that the artificial satellite Sputnik was launched in 1957 by the
Soviets. They reasoned that, going back to the basics, they can also produce the kinds
of minds that can match those of the Soviets. Eventually, educational reforms were
passed by the US federal government such as the National Defense Education Act, in
1958. (Kessinger, 2010)

Basic Education and Essentialist Revival (1980s)

When the United States issued a report, A Nation at Risk, in 1983, it revived
essentialism once again in public education. The report warned about the decline of the
foundations of American society due to educational mediocrity. This mediocrity, they
reasoned, would also pose a threat to the national security of the United States. The
report also encouraged reform and suggested higher standards and improved or more
demanding content. It also called for a renewed emphasis (or Neo-essentialist
perspective) on the "Five New Basics." This would include the minimum standard for
high school graduation: English (4 years), Math/Science/Social Studies (3 years each),
and Computer Science (1 1/2 year). For college bound students, Foreign Language (2
years) was recommended. The neo-essentialist movement revived the ideas of the

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earlier essentialist movement. Advocates are frequently associated with political and
cultural conservatism. (Kessinger, 2010)

In year 2001, the legislation known as the No Child Left Behind Act, continued the
efforts of the US federal government for reforms in education. As a result of the NCLB,
states are obligated to increase standards, achievement by means of tests, expect
highly qualified teachers, and give evidence of greater accountability. These
requirements are also essentialist in design. (Kessinger, 2010)


II. Perennialism

Perennialism is also a teacher-centered educational philosophy that focuses on

everlasting ideas and universal truths. The focus of education should be the ideas that
have lasted for centuries believing that the ideas are as relevant and meaningful today
as when they were written. Examples would be the teaching of religion and history.

Perennialism’s Roots from Realism & Thomism

In the previous session, we talked about Aristotle's realism and his emphasis on the
natural world that can be perceived by the senses. He also gave importance on man
having the capability to reason and think for himself (rational). It was also discussed that
under realism, subjects such as the sciences and math are evident in a school
curriculum.

Thomism or Thomist philosophical views depend on St. Thomas Aquinas as he centers

his attention upon a liberal education where the purpose is "...essentially to cultivate and
liberate, form and equip intelligence, and to prepare for the development of intellectual
virtues, but that this development itself, once the threshold of virtue has been crossed,
is necessarily particularized to a given branch of knowledge." (Bowyer, 1970)

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Bowyer (1970) also pointed out that under Thomism, the mind is formed by God. The
teacher, like sense data, is only a stimulant for knowledge. A Thomist places the
curriculum antecedent to the individual, for knowledge of God is universal and a priori,
and to suggest that the reconstruction of experience might be a factor in searching for
truth would be totally foreign to the Aquinian view. A Thomist does not learn from
experience, for the vagaries of everyday experience are ordered in accordance to the
preconceptions received by way of the active intellect.

The aim of Perennialism in education then is to develop the power of thought,

internalize truths that are universal and constant and to ensure that students acquire
understanding about the great ideas of Western civilization. Perennailism stimulate
students in how to think critically and thoughtfully; cultivating the rational mind.

Perennialism’s View of Education

As a teacher-centered philosophy, the teacher is less concerned with student interest

and more concerned with transferring knowledge from older generations to younger
generations. Reading will be given importance and often use the reading lessons to
make a moral point. Teachers would use history, religion, literature, and the laws of
science to reinforce universal ideas that have the potential to solve any problem in any
era.

When it comes to curriculum, the focus will be on attaining cultural literacy, stressing
students’ growth in enduring disciplines. Learning through reading and analyzing the
works by history’s finest thinkers and writers will also be stressed. Reading is to be
supplemented with mutual investigations with teacher and minimally directed
discussions through the Socratic method in order to develop understanding of concepts.
Therefore, more emphasis on the humanities, and less emphasis on vocational and
technical education.

Perennialism Across Time

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Robert M. Hutchins’ Appeal for an Ideal Education

Robert M. Hutchins was a graduate of Yale University and its law school. He joined the
law faculty and soon was named Dean, where he gained notice for Yale's development
of the philosophy of Legal Realism. Hutchins was 30 years old when he later became
University of Chicago's president in 1929.

He was also controversial in his programs. He deplored the tendency of the US

educational institutions to drift toward specialization, vocationalism, and pragmatism.

In the late 1930s, Hutchins introduced his Chicago Plan for liberal education. His belief
that the last two years of high school in America duplicated the first two years of college.
There was a drastic reorganization that began collegiate education in the third year of
high school and ended after the second year of college. Students demonstrated
mastery of a subject by passing a comprehensive examination that could be
administered at any time, whether they attended classes or not. Instruction was
primarily by discussion. Hutchins believed that "dialogue" rather than lecturing was the
best means of learning.

He introduced study of the Great Books at various levels in the university. At the same
time, he argued eloquently about the purposes of higher education. Moreover, his belief
that colleges placed undue emphasis on nonacademic pursuits, Chicago abandoned
the intercollegiate football in 1939. He also argued agains educational systems that
award elective courses with little or no relation to one another. Hutchins, in his
publication, Education for Freedom, said, "The aims of education is that of holding that
nothing is any more important than anything else, that there can be no order of goods
and no order in the intellectual realm."

Some of his published works were The Higher Learning in America (1936), No Friendly
Voice (1937), and The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education

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(1952). He also served in varied institutions such as Ford Foundation as associate
director (1951), Fund for the Republic as president (1954), founder of the Center for the
Study of Democratic Institutions (1959), and chairman of the Board of Editors of
Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1943 until his retirement in 1974. (Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 1980, 2019)

Jacques Maritain’s Religious Perennialism

The writings of both Aquinas and Maritain suggest an educative process that is based
upon logical discourse, that is highly intellectualist, that assumes intellectual virtues
which are merely capacities to be developed. (Bowyer, 1970)

Maritain was enormously productive as a teacher, lecturer, writer, reviewer, editor, and
organizer of Thomistic study, as well as a political philosopher and champion of social
justice. During the Second World War, he lived in the United States and also taught at
Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Chicago. From 1945 to 1948, Maritain was
French ambassador to the Vatican. He spent the remainder of his active career teaching
at Princeton. He also received many honors both from universities and from the Church.
(The Gale Group, 2004)

Some of his best known books and most significant are Art and Scholasticism (1920),
The Angelic Doctor (1929), a study of the life and thought of St. Thomas; The Degrees
of Knowledge (1932), probably his single most important writing and the fullest
statement of his philosophical position; Scholasticism and Politics (1940); Existence and
the Existent (1947); The Person and the Common Good (1947); Man and the State
(1951); and Moral Philosophy (1960). The Peasant of the Garonne (1968) is a sharply
critical look at a number of trends in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican
Council. His work continued to be published by academic and scholarly presses even
two decades after his death. (The Gale Group, 2004)


Mortimer Adler’s Paideia Proposal

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Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) was an American philosopher-educator. He raised a stir
in public schools, colleges, and universities over the place of classic works in the
curriculum. For more than sixty years, his writings exposed to public scrutiny radical
ideas about how to enlighten and educate the well-rounded individual. Whether
admired, ridiculed, or detested for encouraging self-directed reading, he encouraged a
healthy debate on learning and values. (The Gale Group, 2004)

When he was in his teens, he worked as a copyboy and secretary to the editor of the
New York Sun. Afterwards, he was able to read the autobiography of the English
philosopher John Stuart Mill, that made him quit high school to direct his own education.
He began by reading Plato, eventually obtaining a scholarship where he earned an
undergraduate degree in philosophy at Columbia University in three years. However, he
left without a diploma because he refused to complete the swimming requirement. In
1983, the university relented and awarded him the long-delayed Bachelor of Arts
degree. (The Gale Group, 2004)

In 1982 a group of scholars and educators headed by philosopher Mortimer Adler

published The Paideia Proposal. Paideia is the Greek word for the nurturing of children,
and the Paideia Group was dedicated to providing a powerful public education for all. In
the years immediately following the proposal, Adler and the original Paideia Group
published two more books–Paideia Problems and Possibilities (1983) and The Paideia
Program (1984)–intended in part to answer practical questions about program
implementation. The National Paideia Center was established at the University of North
Carolina in 1988, and in 1992 began working in close, classroom-based partnership
with schools. By the year 2000 the center was working with well over a hundred schools
in over a dozen states, and the list was growing continually. Paideia has grown steadily
since the early 1990s for several reasons. (The Gale Group, 2004)

The first reason is that the original Paideia principles have appealed to many as a
powerful condensation of the best thinking about public education. Adler focused on the

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profound connection between school reform and the United States as a functional
democracy. The Paideia philosophy stated principles that in 1982 seemed radical but by
1995 had became accepted wisdom. Such principles as "all children can learn" and
"therefore they deserve the same quality, not just quantity, of education," anticipated
many of the later American reform movements, and documented Paideia's origin in a
philosophy of human development. (The Gale Group, 2004)

The second reason is that the program marries a fundamentally conservative idea, the
benecial rigors of a classical education, and a fundamentally liberal one, inclusive
teaching and learning practices. These seemingly contradictory ideas–intellectual rigor
and equal access to a quality education–are the bedrock upon which successful Paideia
schools have been built. (The Gale Group, 2004)

The program includes all subjects and embraces important curriculum from diverse
cultures. The N.P. Center has provided schools with curricular information on how to use
Paideia instructional techniques in mathematics, science, music, literature, writing, and
physical education–all the subjects in a strong core curriculum. In addition, the center
has broadened the use of the term classical to include the study of texts by African
Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and representatives of other cultures. (The Gale Group,
2004)

The Paideia is based on a mix of teaching strategies called the "three columns" of
teaching. They are made up of the didactic instruction of curricular information,
intellectual coaching of the skills necessary to manipulate and apply information, and
seminar discussion of the ideas and values inherent to that information. Paideia does
not require a specific curriculum, but rather provides a system for fostering student
engagement with the standard curriculum of a state or district. In contrast to the heavy
use of teacher-centered, didactic instruction characterizing traditional American schools,
the Paideia program focuses on limiting didactic instruction to less that 15 percent of
classroom time and devoting the remaining 85 to 90 percent to increased student
learning activity. (The Gale Group, 2004)

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Detailed program evaluations, such as the one conducted by the Center for Research
and Evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, have shown that
Paideia schools consistently produce a greater increase in standardized test scores for
all students than do non-Paideia schools. In addition, Paideia schools consistently show
an improved school climate, including a more inviting environment for minority students.

The eventual goal of the Paideia program is schools that offer every student access to a
rigorous education. To accomplish this goal, the Paideia program prescribes schools
that are themselves communities of thought, where adults and students alike focus on
the skills and attitudes of lifelong learning and continuous improvement.

III. Analysis of the DepEd K-12 Curriculum

Essentialism and Perennialism are also evident in the DepEd K-12 Curriculum. Most of
the subjects are offered in the Basic Education. Some public schools also offer classes
in religion such as Madrasah or Christian Living. In Senior High, there are different
tracks that students can choose from such as STEM, ABM, GAS, HUMSS, TVL, Art and
Design, and Sports. Each track would also have core subjects common to all. There is
also the addition of the Alternative Learning System (ALS) in Basic Education that
allows self-learning. However, in its Mission statement, the teacher would still be the
one to facilitate learning and would serve as guide to the students.

IV. Analyses & Conclusions

The good thing about essentialism and perennialism in education is that the students
are given opportunity to know the classics that can contribute to one's personal
development. It would make the person understand his self, the world around him, his
mission in life, and even about God the supreme being and universal creator. The
disadvantage would be, there is a tendency to shun materialistic culture and progress in
technology or the industries.

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Public schools provide basic knowledge and skills that students should develop in order
to become functional and literate members of the society. Essentialists are correct that a
student at least must know how to read, write, and do math (the 3Rs - reading, 'riting,
and 'rithmetic). These three would enable the person to survive in the modern world.
Having mastery of the three basic skills would now be easier for the student to move on
to the next higher levels of learning.


Is there such a thing as perennial knowledge and values? Why or why not?


Perennial knowledge and values are taught through the ages. It has withstood the test
of time because it harnesses the individual to develop his thoughts and the way to think
critically. Since we are all born in a world that challenges us to survive, we all need to be
critical thinkers and problem solvers. Thus, history is taught so the successes or failures
in the previous generations would also be known. We also have support groups (such
as religious institutions/socio-civic groups) and teachers that can guide us in order for
us to live peacefully despite our differences. We have diverse culture but we try to seek
universality or oneness (such as having one God, the Creator, and His command on
how we should live).

To what extent should education be conservative on one hand and progressive on the
other?


Progress is not that bad. Due to progress, we are able to enjoy better lives and better
health. Thanks to science and technology, we are also living comfortably compared to
the previous generations. However, there is also the issue of environmental
degradation. As an answer or possible solution, the whole world is now trying to
collaborate on how to have sustainable development. We nurture ourselves today and
at the same time, conserve what we have in this planet for the future generations. This
is a great task and constant education is really needed to come up with innovative
answers as we need them.

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IV. Points to Ponder
Here are some questions to think about after reading the references:
1. The Paideia Program seems to be a promising one. Can we also adopt the program
in the Philippines?
2. In what other ways can we innovate to improve our teaching and students'
performance?
3. Are we also offering the right content or subjects to the students?

Bibliography:

Bagley, William C. (1938). An Essentialist's Platform for the Advancement of American

Education. Retrieved September 9, 2019 from http://edu224fall2010.pbworks.com/f/
Bagley+-+An+Essentialist%27s+Platform+%281938%29.pdf

Bestor, A. E. (1953). Educational wastelands: The retreat from learning in our public
schools. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Bowyer, Carlton H. (1970). Philosophical Perspectives For Education. Illinois: Scott,

Foresman and Company

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (2019). William Chandler Bagley. In Encyclopaedia

Britannica. Retrieved August 29, 2019 from https://www.britannica.com/biography/
William-Chandler-Bagley

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. (1980). Hutchins, Robert M. In The New Encyclopaedia

Britannica 15th edition, 5. Chicago: William Benton

Gutek, G. L. (2004). Philosophical and ideological voices in education. Boston: Pearson.

Gutek, G. L. (2009). New perspectives on philosophy and education. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Pearson.

Kessinger, Thomas A. (2010). Essentialism. In Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and

Dissent, Thomas Hunt (ed.). Retrieved September 01, 2019 from https://
paradisevalley.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=30093327

Net Industries (2019). William C. Bagley. Retrieved September 9, 2019 from https://
education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1780/Bagley-William-C-1874-1946.html

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No Author (n.d.). Perennialism. In Educational Philosophies. Retrieved September 01,
2019 from https://graduatefoundationsmoduleela.wordpress.com/perennialism/

The Gale Group (2004). Robert Maynard Hutchins. In Encyclopedia of World Biography.
Retrieved September 01, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/
history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/robert-maynard-hutchins

Maheshwari, V.K. (2011). Perennialism in Education. Retrieved September 01, 2019

from www.vkmaheshwari.com/WP/?p=166

Malawit, Roger (2018). Essentialism and Perennialism in Education. In Sun Star

Pampanga, June 18, 2018. Retrieved September 10, 2019 from https://
www.pressreader.com

No author (n.d.). Perennialism. In Educational Philosophies. Retrieved August 29, 2019

from https://graduatefoundationsmoduleela.wordpress.com/perennialism/

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