1 Gripping and enduring interests frequently, and in respect of the higher interests almost always, grow out of initial

learning efforts that are not intrinsically appealing or attractive. William Chandler Bagley Every point in time, it seems, education has been expected to take on the responsibility of curing all of society's problems, even though many consider education to be one of its problems. No one can argue the reality that society as a whole, has problems. Just watch the news and you will see what kind of shape our society is in with poverty all over the country, corruption in the government, drugs and crime going on everywhere in the Philippines. We Filipinos with our high regard for education believe that it is the answer. Faced with constant changes in our world others say that education in the Philippines is so lacking that it can't possibly help students develop into contributing members of society. There are so many critics and there are so many solutions that are proposed, that it's hard to say what will work with the inevitable and rapid changes of tomorow. That is why, in this writer's opinion, it is requisite to know what educational theory is essentialism and what is its implication in the Philippine educational system. The Philippine educational system dated back from the pre-spanish era and has evolved and now patterned after the American system, school are classified into public (government) or private (non-government). Basically public schools in the Philippines are 90% traditional they are teacher centered, have isolated curriculum (subject are taught separately), product oriented, skills are learned thru repetition, concepts are presented as facts to memorize,

2 have quantitative evaluation (numerical testing) and have bigger class. The general pattern of formal education follows four stages: Pre-primary level (nursery and kindergarten) offered in most private schools; six years of primary or elementary education, followed by four years of secondary or high school education. College education usually takes four, sometimes five and in some cases as in medical and law school, as long as eight years. Graduate schooling is an additional two or more years. (Whitman & Aldinger, 2009) Consider as a conservative educational theory that was developed in opposition to progressive education, essentialism rooted philosophically in both idealism and realism. Essentialism emphasizes an academic curriculum of subjects and encourages teachers who stress order, discipline and effort. For essentialist, the important aims of education are: 1 to transmit the basic skills and knowledge found in the cultural heritage; 2 to emphasize the learning of those skills and subjects that can lead learners to still higher level skills and knowledge; and (3) to use education as a civilizing knowledge and values of the past and the requirements of the presents (Ornstein & Levin, 1985) Until the 1930s, essentialism continue to be overshadowed by progressivism in any explicit philosophic formulation. It was criticized as being too rigid to prepare student adequately for adult life. Professor William C. Bagley of Teachers College, Columbia University is generally regarded as the modern day father of the essentialist educational philosophy. In 1938, an organization known as The Essentialists Committee for Advancement of

3 Education came into being. William C. Bagley, although not regarded as a professional philosopher, he consider himself a realist and appreciated the importance of a philosophic grounding for education. The label essentialist was coined by the idealist Michael Demiashkevish who cooperated closely with Bagley in the committee. (Brameld, 1955) For essentialist the aim of education is to prepare the students to be productive, contributing members of society. For them, the young need the essentials to live well in the modern world, To instil in the students the essentials of academic knowledge and ensures the accumulated wisdom of our civilization as taught in the intellectual disciplines. Such intellectual discipline may include History; Mathematics; Science; Language and

Literature. (Gutek, 1988) Arthur Bestor also a leading essentialist of the fifties believed that liberal arts and sciences were the core of a general education which would enable men and women to function intelligently. (Gutek, 1988) Interest to essentialism theory came back when: The Soviet Union launch of the Sputnik satellite humiliated the United State which had fully expected to be first nation into space. American blamed the public education system for not producing enough sufficiently talented scientist and engineers to propel the United State into outer space ahead of its then-enemy. Educators responded by developing a more intellectually demanding curriculum. The math, sciences and reasoning skills fostered in the essentialist curriculum proponents claimed, would produce the scientists, engineers and technology workers who would defend and protect the United States from outside threats. Students intellectual trainings became a critical weapon of nationa

4 defence. To this day, most American high schools continue to rely on an essentialist curriculum. (Kaplan & Owings, p.170) The national security panic about the schools failing that it led them to study the nations educational standing, the prominent April, 1983 report on American education, from the National Commission on Excellence in Education entitled A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform reported U.S. children lagged behind other nations achievement level when it came to basic subjects. It conclude that public school needed to improve their teaching and improve students skills in basic areas like reading, writing and science. Wide support for back to basics curriculum followed. (Kaplan & Owings, 2011) One of its educational principles is that guidance of the immature student should come from a well-educated and cultured teacher. Generally essentialists view the teacher as the most important, most knowledgeable person in the classroom. Therefore, its no surprise that essentialist seem to show common methodological preference for the lecture method. They avoid methodological frills and soft pedagogy and concentrate proven instructional methods. (Ornstein & Levin, 1985) Its main concepts focus on essentials of academic knowledge and character development. (Gutek, 1988) According to essentialist perspective, school focus should be very subject centered, academic and mentalistic. Essentialism embraces a subjectarea methodology. This is the oldest and most widely known organization structure for education. Its foundation

5 lies in the seven liberal arts of classical Greek and Roman education: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Modern day subject-area curricula can be traced to the work of William Torrey Harris, superintendent of the St. Louis school system from 1969 to 1880 (Dhawan, 2005) The essentialist classroom urges that the most essential or basic academic skills and knowledge be taught to all students. Traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature form the foundation of the essentialist curriculum. Essentialists frown upon vocational, adjusted, or other courses with "watered down" academic content. (Dhawan, 2005) Students from elementary level receive training skills such as writing, reading, measurement and computers. Even while learning arts and music, subjects that are most associated with the development of creativity, the students are still required to master a body of information and basic techniques, gradually moving from fewer complexes to more complex skills and detailed knowledge. Only by mastering the required material for their grade level that a student will be promoted to the next level. (Dhawan, 2005) If essentialists are against unconventional way of learning, what are they approve of? An excellent description of the essentialist conception of the school was given by John A. Ciardi, associate professor of English at Rutgers University

6 pass the great stone halls, of say, MIT, and there cut into stone are the names of the master scientists. The chances are that few of you will leave your names to be cut into those stones. Yet any one of you who managed to stay awake through part of a high school course in physics, knows more about physics than did many of those great makers of the past. You know more because they left you what they knew. The first course in any science is essentially a history course. You have to begin by learning what the past learned for you. Except as a man has entered the past of the race he has no function in civilization. And as this is true of the techniques of mankind, so is it true of mankinds spiritual resources. Most of these resources, both technical and spiritual, are stored in books. Books, the arts, and the techniques of science, are mans peculiar accomplishment. When you have read a book, you have added to your human experience. Read Homer and your mind includes a piece of Homers mind. Through books you can acquire at least fragments of the mind and experience of Virgil, Dante, Shakespearethe list is endless. For a great book is necessarily a gift: it offers you a life you have not time to live yourself, and it takes you into a world you have not time to travel in literal time. A civilized human mind is, in essence, one that contains many such lives and many such worlds. If you are too much in a hurry, or too arrogantly proud of your own limitations, to accept as a gift to your humanity some pieces of the minds of Sophocles, of Aristotle, of Chaucerand right down the scale and down the ages to Yeats, Einstein, E.B. White, and Ogden Nash then you may be protected by the laws governing manslaughter, and you may be a voting entity, but you are neither a developed human being nor a useful citizen of a democracy. I think it was La Rochefoucauld who said that most people would never fall in love if they hadnt read about it. He might have said that no one would ever manage to become a human if he hadnt read about it. I speak, I am sure, for the faculty of the liberal arts colleges and for the faculties of the specialized schools as well, when I say that a university has no real existence and no real purpose except as it succeeds in putting you in touch, both as specialists and as humans, with those human minds your human mind needs to include. The faculty, by its very existence, says implicitly: We have been aided by many people, and by many books, and by the arts, in our attempt to make ourselves some sort of storehouse of human experience. We are here to make available to you, as best we can, that experience.
Assume, for example, that you want to be a physicist. You

Basically the student role in an essentialist school is to listen and learn. The individual childs interest, motivations and psychological states are not important (Gutek, 1988) Also it is crucial to mention that in an essentialist classroom, students are taught to be "culturally literate," that is, to possess a working knowledge about the people, events, ideas, and institutions that have shaped society. Reflecting the essentialist emphasis on technological literacy, A Nation at Risk recommends that all high school students complete at least one semester of computer science. (Ornstein & Levin, 1985) Reflecting on its conservative philosophy and traditional approached to schooling, it has become apparent for the researcher that essentialism implication in Philippine education is clearly seen from basic to secondary education. "Traditional and rigorous practices of lecture, question and answer, discussion, recitation, use of textbooks and mastery of facts reflect its influences". (San Mateo & Tangco, 2003) Contrary to the Americans article A Nation at Risk the researcher conclude back to basics curriculum is not enough to help the Philippine economy become affluent and to make our graduates globally competitive. We have been using the "back to basic" curriculum long enough, its now time for our government to reform its educational system. But the writer cannot deny the fact that there are some essentialist components that would serve every

8 teacher and every student well, for these components come back time and again. Students should learn to persevere through unattractive tasks, and practice the basic skills to citizens. develop all they need to become productive

References Brameld, Theodore 1955. Philosophies of Education in Cultural Perspective. United State of America: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Dhawan, M. L. 2005. Philosophy of Education. India: Isha Books Gutek, G.L. (1972). A history of western educational experience. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press Kaplan, Leslie S. & Owings, William A. 2011. American Education Building a Common Foundation. United State of America:Wadsworth. Ornstein, Allan C. & Levine, Daniel U. (1985).Foundation of Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Whitman, Cheryl Vince & Aldinger, Carmen E. 2009. Case Studies in Global School Health Promotion:From Research to Practice. USA: Springer Science + Business Media