What are essentialist schools and why does this educational philosophy not work for most students?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Suggested Response:
Essentialists define learning as the acquisition of essential knowledge and values. Metaphors used by essentialists to describe learning portray knowledge as water and students as empty vessels to be filled or as sponges ready to absorb. Although teachers may select from a variety of pedagogical techniques, the goal is to motivate students to remember information provided in textbooks, lectures, and media. Essentialists maintain that knowledge from four disciplines is essential: social studies, science, mathematics, and English language and literature are the basics of all education and other subjects such as art, music, physical education are enjoyable but not necessary. They test according to objective testing. They teach the core American values of the middle class such as promptness, honesty, hard work, competitiveness, and efficiency. One problem with this approach is who determine what essential knowledge is. In this curriculum, the contributions of women, people of color and non-European knowledge is not valued or taught. Also the primary reason it does not work is that all children to not learn in the same manner and at the same rate. The solution essentialists have developed to address incomplete learning is to group students according to ability, which is known as tracking. This may be okay for excellent learners who can learn in homo- and heterogeneous grouping but for moderate and slow learners they learn better in heterogeneous groups. The most significant obstacle to learning in essentialist schools is the problem of retention and transfer. Studies have consistently found that when tested for retention of information, students tend to recall no more than 20% of what they had supposedly learned the first time they took the exam.