Essentialism: The New Education Program

I graduated two days ago.  I became a functioning human being this morning, so this post might be a bit delayed.

The acting superintendent of our school district brought up an interesting point during his speech.  He said that in the 40 years he's worked in the education system he's seen the teaching style shift from what he called fundementalism to what he called essentialism.

Fundementalism, he said, was the system in which students learned the fundementals of their subjects.  They learned primarily reading, writing, and arithmetic.  The downside of this system it a bit apparent.  Students don't learn complex subjects because they are busy learning about these core ideas.

Essentialism, he said, was based on the 500 things that students need to know.  In this system, fundementals are sometimes forgone for the opportunity to learn something that administrators (because educators seem to have no say in the educational system) deem 'important.'  The problem with essentialism is glaringly obvious.  Instead of students being taught to ask questions like, "Who is Yossarian?" or, "Why am I here?" or, "Why does the earth revolve around the sun?" students are instead asking questions like, "What's a verb?" or, "What's twelve times eleven?"

Educators are now given curricula and standards which forgo things necessary for learning.  Teachers in high school find themselves having to teach topics which should have been covered in elementary school (like short division, sentence structure, and what constitutes plagiarism).

It seems that American education has always had its flaws.  But I hope we come up with something better before I have kids.

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