Philosophies of Education.

Which do you favor?

• Perennialism
• Progressivism
• Essentialism

Perennialism

Perennialists are of the belief that the focus of education should be the ideas that have lasted over centuries. Further, they believe those ideas are as applicable and significant in today’s world as when they were first written. Perennialists strongly endorse the idea that learners acquire knowledge from reading and analyzing the works done by the best thinkers and writers of the past. The perennialist curriculum is universal and is founded on their view that all human beings possess the same essential nature and think it is important that students think flexibly, deeply, analytically, and imaginatively.

Progressivism

Progressivists in contrast to Perennialists and Essentialists believe that progress and change are central to the education of students. They believe that people learn best from what they consider most important to their lives, progressivists center their curriculum on students’ needs, interests, abilities, and their experiences. Teachers who are progressivists plan planning lessons that provoke curiosity such that, students are actively learning, interact and cooperate with each other developing tolerance for different points of view. The activities are vocationally driven since students solve problems in the classroom similar to those they will encounter in their everyday lives through experimentation.

Essentialism

Essentialism tries to instill all students with the most essential or basic academic knowledge and skills and character development. The foundation of essentialist curriculum is based on traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature. Essentialists do not support vocational education. Students are required to master a set body of information and basic techniques for their grade level before they can be promoted to the next higher grade. Essentialists believe like Perennialists that classrooms should be teacher-oriented where the teacher serves as a moral and an intellectual role model for the learners and, is centered on students being taught about the people, events, ideas, and institutions that have shaped society. Finally, the teachers decide what the curriculum will contain with little regard to the students’ needs experiences and interests. 

Reference

Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2015). Curriculum: Foundations, principles and issues. Pearson.