Essentialism is the first teaching philosophy of my choice and for various reasons. Essentialism is the belief that there are a basic set of skills and values that every American student should have and practice. Once students retain the necessary skills and information, repetition and memorization come into play to ensure mastery of the subject. Essentialism is a very popular theory in the United States education system today.
State standards for learning is one way students can master the essential skills at hand. With the standards broken up to the appropriate levels, the knowledge of the students can then be tested with the periodical standardized tests. This information provides educators with useful information and the students then retain the knowledge.
Essentialism is important to me because I feel that if students receive basic skills and knowledge they can apply it to their personal lives and their education. Retaining the knowledge they receive throughout grade school will increase there level of success, and they can take this knowledge with them.
Perennialism is an education philosophy I personally admire. With a strong structure and conservative teaching methods I find perennialism to be a very valid philosophy. Rationalization and reasoning are fundamentals to this philosophy.
When students come to a problem in their education, rationalization can clear thinking can assist them so one can find a solution. Perennialism and rational thinking would not only be successful in educational lives of students but in their personal lives as well. Personal development is a focus point for perennialism and reasoning. For instance, nearly all of my life I have been taught the acronym “my very intelligent mother just served us nine pizzas” to remember the names of the “nine” planets, and then suddenly Pluto is a planet after all. This came as a shock but maybe if the facts and numbers weren’t drilled into my mind and the characteristics of planets were, the reason for Pluto not being a planet might have made sense.
I find perennialism very important because throughout this year it has proved to be helpful. This principle of finding the reason and the background as to why something is rather than facts and formulas, is much more sensible. For example, after many hours of studying I could tell you how to rid a rational expression of radicals but I could not even begin to explain why or how it made since to do so. This is another instance where reasoning and perennialism would prove to be a powerful tool.