Essentialism is Essential in Education

Essentialism is Essential in Education

All six of the major educational philosophies Perennialism, Progressivism, Essentialism, Existentialism, Social Reconstruction, and Behaviorism are in my opinion feasible in the classroom. However, I have chosen Essentialism as the primary philosophy I would like to employ in my classroom for several reasons. Although I think all six would result in learning, which is the primary purpose of education, I think that Essentialism is superior to the other five for my classroom. I feel this way because it embraces the purpose or original goal of public education, it allows lessons to be gauged to all different learning styles, and finally because essentialism employs methods of teaching and discipline that I believe work exceptionally well with my content specialization.

By the nineteenth century, public education, although not a perfect system, was well engraved in most Americans. These public schools taught the basics of knowledge through the three R?s: Reading, Writing and 'R'thmetic. This was the basic curriculum of a public school because public schools were in place to educate the people to better function in our society, not to teach them only what they wanted to learn or to teach how to ?better? society. These first public schools were founded on very Essentialist principles that I support whole-heartedly and that I feel should still be the main curriculum of our public schools today. Although electives are important because they help students select what they would like to do in the future, most classes in a public school system should be made up of a rigorous core curriculum so that students can gain the basic reading, writing, and math skills that they need to fu...

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.... I feel that in most cases, once a student has been punished through negative reinforcement for doing wrong, the student will attempt to correct such behavior in the future to avoid punishment. In addition, positive reinforcement should be given for those students who are the majority and behave, as well as for the students who are occasional troublemakers because positive reinforcement helps show what is correct behavior in response to bad behavior.

In conclusion, after receiving my Bachelor?s Degree from Concord College, I intend to complete a Master?s program in Education at either Concord College or Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Upon completing my Master?s I plan to return to my home area of Franklin County Virginia to teach Social Studies on a high school level. I look forward to doing so, as well as proving just how essential essentialism can be.