ESSENTIALISM

After the downfall of progressivism, there was the dawn of Essentialism in American society. In fact, it was an educational movement rather than philosophy. It was introduced to revive the education system of USA, which was lowered down by the progressivism. This American philosophy of education which began in 1930’s and 1940’s as a reaction to what was seen as a overemphasis on a child-centered approach to education and a concern that student were not gaining appropriate knowledge in schools. Basically, the root forms of essentialism are idealism and realism. The etymological meaning of Essentialism is the word “Essence” is very closed to the definition of form and “ism” means the study. Therefore, the study of the structure or the form is essentialism. It is easier to understand the structure and real existence of anything by the analogy to an artifact produced by a craftsman. The main profounder of this philosophy are Bagley, Demishevich, Morrison, Briggs, Breed, Kandel, Finney etc. The main purpose of this schooling is to prepare students to be productive, contributing members of society and to teach the young the essentials they need to live well in the modern world. The main essentials of Essentialism are:-

1. Certainty in knowledge and truth:-

The school should provide the valuable knowledge for the children to make a whole man. The skills and knowledge they learned and gained at childhood and youth stage is the main base at adult stage as we say morning shows a day and a child shows a man. Therefore, whatever things we learned during our childhood and young stage, that shaped our adult activities and behavior. The right knowledge and true things r true wisdom of our childhood leads the future life and on the basis of it, we can continue our norms and values further in proper way.

2. Certainty in values: -

The main function of school is to handover the fixed traditional norms and values to the students. The world has its own norms and values which are unalterable or permanent. So, they are called universal norms and values.

3. The individual and society: -

 The individual and society have close relationship. The all round development of an individual completely depend on the society. Therefore, the individual should have the ability transform him or herself with the change of social factors and he\she should make himself\herself as a civilized citizen with civilized society.

Basic principles

1. Learning necessarily involves hard work and application: -

As we say, ‘no pain no gain.’ Therefore, for the fruitful result, one should do hard work Self discipline and self control is necessary for hard work, which affect positively throughout life. We should give priority to the future plans\ aims of the students rather than the present needs of the learner. The main aim of the students should be suppression of the immediate needs and thinking about the future progress.

2. The initiation in education should lie with the teacher rather than the pupil:-

Learning can’t be successful unless it is based on the capacities interest and purpose of the learner but those purpose and interest must be made over by the skill of the teacher who is master of the logical organizer. Teacher is in the center of the teaching-learning process. Principles of learning knowledge of child psychology, knowledge of learning process, commitment of the profession are the basic foundations of a teacher without which she can not be teacher.Untill and unless the adults direct the child they can’t identify their potentials. The vast majority of the students only attain knowledge through voluntary and intelligent submission to discipline imposed by the teacher.

3. The core of education is the absorption of prescribe subject matter:-

 The wisdom of the many, tested by history is more significant than the knowledge of the individual and far more significant than the totally untested experience of the child. The purpose of child attending school-to get to know this world as it really is and not merely to interpret it in the light of his\her own interest. Where does the child get such knowledge? Experience from the past and should make them ready for the future life. The main foundations of the future are contemporary society, environment and circumstances. The child does not get social adoption in the lack of such curriculum.

4. The school should retain traditional methods of mental discipline:-

The child should be taught the essential concepts that he needs in order to understand the situation, even if this concepts have to be adapted to his own psychological and intellectual level. The purpose of education should be to encourage knowledge of the whole life rather than to concentrate on the solution of the problem. Many of the things are abstract that can not be divided into pieces. Learning by doing is only a means which can’t be generalized in every stage of life.

Education and Essentialism

Educational essentialism is a theory that states that children should learn the traditional basic subjects and these should be learned thoroughly and rigorously. An essentialist program normally teaches children progressively, from less complex skills to more complex. An essentialist will usually teach some set subjects similar to Reading, Writing, Literature, and Foreign languages, History, Math, Science, Art and Music. 

Essentialism in ethics:-

Essentialism in ethics is changing that some things are wrong in an absolute sense, for example murder breaks a universal, objective and natural moral law and not merely an adventitious, socially or ethically constructed one.

Essentialism in biology:-

Before evolution was developed as a viable scientific theory, there existed an essentialist view of biology that posited all species to be unchanging throughout time. Some religious opponents of evolution continue to maintain this view of biology.

Essentialism and society: -

Essentialist positions on gender race or other group characteristics, consider these to be fixed traits while not allowing for variations among individuals or over time. Contemporary proponents of identity politics including feminism, gay rights, and anti-racist activists generally take constructionist viewpoints, agreeing with Simone de Beauvoir that “One is not born, but becomes a woman,” for example. However, this is a vexed issue. That means giving more emphasis to male – dominated society.

Essentialism in history:-

 Essentialism is used by some historians in listing essential characteristics of a particular nation or culture. A people can understand this way. These characteristics have degenerated into clichés serving to justify colonial practices. In other cases, the essentialist method has been used by members. Or admirers, of historical community to establish a praiseworthy national identity. This theory gives more emphasis to preserve the good things for future generation.

Essentialism and Education

According to essentialism, there are four concepts of education. They are:

1. The purpose of formal education is of two kinds-

They are Social aim and individual aim. Social aim includes the process of handover of the cultural heritages to new generations then only the society. For this he needs intellectual training and school- programs advancement of the intellectual life.

2. The nature of curriculum: -

 Accepted values are so essential that they must be transmitted to all those who come to school. Common core of subjects’ matters should be combined with intellectual skills. Traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language and literature form the foundation of the essentialist curriculum. Reading, writing, dictation, number system.

3. The function of teaching and the role of the teacher: -

The function of teaching is to bring the essential portion of the cultural heritage uninformed child together by transmitting to the students and instilling into him the essential portion of the accumulated heritage. Teacher is the sufficient cause of the educational process. She must an academic scholar. He\she holds moral integrity. He\she has profound sense of justice. He is always committed to human betterment.

Role of students

As we know that ‘Knowledge is power and work is worship.’Therefore, without hard labor and work no student can obtain knowledge. Another most important thing is the students should follow the directions of the teacher and should move ahead. Then only the essentials of the world can be understand easily by the students.

School

No mission to change or reform the social order but rather to preserve and refine that exists. The schools teach the students about the importance of social cultures and heritages and encourage them to preserve and conserve. Similarly, provide intellectual training to the students. So that students can cope with different social activities easily. Finally, essentialism gives more important to natural things. That is old is gold. Natural things have idealistic value. So, it has power to find out the truth.