Philosophies that focus on educational goals, teaching methods and curricula:

1. Essentialism
As Lynch (2016) stated that the focus of essentialism is to maintain the progress of the students
on the subjects taught, this includes lecturing, memorization, repetition, practice, and
assessment. Students are expected to fulfil the standard aspects to be able to continue their
learning process to the next grade. This philosophy focuses on the educational goals which is to
make students understand and mastering each subject that are taught and be able to continue
to the upper grade of the lessons measured by the tests and assignments.

2. Perennialsm
Bansal (2015) described Perennialsm as an old fashioned and a strict educational philosophy. As
the goal is to teach the rational thinking of the students and develop the critical thinking.
Perennialists believe in the idea of the unchangeable truth and value. This philosophy allows the
teachers to continue using the teaching methods, concepts and practices that are proven to be
successful over the time (Lynch. 2016)

3. Modernist
Different from essentialism and perennialsm, modernist sees the study of the curriculum as
social, political and cultural situations (Monreal. 2016). The focus is how curriculum planning can
assure that the lessons are relevant to the society’s needs so students are prepared for it.

My opinion about the philosophies in education is based on my job as an early-year teacher. Even after
learning about the philosophies I mentioned above, I still prefer to teach under student-centred learning
process especially with progressivism and existentialism. Within these philosophies, students are able to
get the chance to grow into their potential and according to their interests and skills. I believe that as
young learners, it is crucial to make their learning experience as comfortable as possible and during this
period, they also learn how education can affect their future. When they are used to speak their mind
comfortably, aware of their interests, skills and potentials as early as possible, it will be easier in the
future to develop these aspects. Also, I found that teaching the young learners based on doing
experiences and according to their interest is easier than asking them to sit and listen continuously. They
can absorb more and understand better when they are involved in the process actively as their instinct
to explore is not supressed. In my experience teaching in a student-centred school, giving them the
media they can see, touch and explore then ask their opinion and thoughts about it was easier than
expect them to sit and listen to the explanation in a period of time. My role in this school was to
facilitate the students to explore and find out more, so the learning process was mostly done by
students asking questions instead of listening to the explanation. In this school, students are allowed to
not attend or follow a class if it does not interest them, in the other hand, if they decide to join, they are
responsible to their decision and expected to stay and join the class or activity fully and nicely.

It is not like I am totally against teacher-centred philosophies. For example, essentialism gives
opportunity for the teacher to be aware of what a 3 years olds should be able to do and how to achieve
that. Perennialsm gives teacher chance to learn the methods to handle certain situations and modernist
helps teachers and schools to maintain the best way to prepare the children for life. Yet again, most of
young children still follow their instinct to play and explore instead of just listening and doing the tests.
What the early-year teachers can do for the best is to set up an environment or learning situation that
makes the knowledge transfer process is as natural as possible and give them more experiences that can
help them to develop as an individual.

In real life practice, I would like to combine the progressivism, some of perennialism and a bit of
essentialism to apply in my working situation. I saw this combination is great to maintain the
development of the young learners without putting aside their individual interest and potential. With
perennialism, I could learn on various successful teaching methods and encourage the students to think
rationally and critically since they are young. While essentialism could help me to track the progress and
development of the students, of course the test and assessment are not used because they are not
suitable for young leaners.

References

Bansal, S. (2015). Perennialism – A Concept of Educational Philosophy. International Journal of Education

and Science Research. E-ISSN 2348-6457

Lynch, M. (2016). Philosophies Of Education: 2 Types Of Teacher-Centered Philosophies.

https://www.theedadvocate.org/philosophies-education-2-types-teacher-centered-philosophies/

Lynch, M. (2016). Philosophies Of Education: 3 Types Of Student-Centered Philosophies.

https://www.theedadvocate.org/philosophies-education-3-types-student-centered-philosophies/

Monreal, T. (2016). Modern VS Post Modern Curriculum Development. https://medium.com/my-grad-

school-work/modern-vs-post-modern-curriculum-development-dc9869d9b7fb