My philosophy for education is essentialism, because you’re working with students to teach basic information or subjects. “Essentialism is prominent in American education today.” (Kauchak, Eggen. 203) Essentialism’s goal is to help students understand the basic content. Some people would say “Teachers primary goals should be to help students’ master essential content rather than to help them develop emotionally and socially.” (Kauchak, Eggen. 203) The topics that I will address are essentialism in the classrooms, essentialism in teacher educational programs, and also comparing essentialism to the other three philosophies of education.
Essentialism in the classroom is important in a lot of different aspects in teaching. The teachers’ students have to be able to understand the information that is given to them but in order to do that they have to have a solid foundation with reading, writing, and mathematics. If students don’t have these skills and they don’t want to learn them then where would they end up after school or even for a job? Some students will end up not finishing school because they can’t do the material or possibly understand it. Other students may end up in low end paying jobs or may not even be able to get a job at all. A lot of employers want employees that have the basic skills from what they learned in school to help them at work, instead of spending time and resources to train them in the things everyone should know. So you see why it is important to know the basic skills in education.
Essentialism that is incorporated in teacher educational programs is to help test the teachers’ knowledge in the courses that they are teaching. “As a prospective teacher, you will be required to take a specified sequence of courses, and it’s likely that you’ll be expected to demonstrate mastery of essential teaching skills on a standardized test either