Schools enacting an essentialist curriculum[edit]
The Core Knowledge Schools were founded on the philosophy of essentialist E.D. Hirsch. Although it is difficult to maintain a pure and strict essentialist-only curriculum, these schools have the central aim of establishing a common knowledge base for all citizens. To do so, they follow a nationwide, content-specific, and teacher-centered curriculum. The Core Knowledge curriculum also allows for local variance above and beyond the core curriculum. Central curricular aims are academic excellence and the learning of knowledge, and teachers who are masters of their knowledge areas serve this aim.[10]
Criticism of essentialism[edit]
Because Essentialism is largely teacher-centered, the role of the student is often called into question. Presumably, in an essentialist classroom, the teacher is the one designing the curriculum for the students based upon the core disciplines. Moreover, he or she is enacting the curriculum and setting the standards which the students must meet. The teacher's evaluative role may undermine students' interest in study.[11] As a result, the students begin to take on more of a passive role in their education as they are forced to meet and learn such standards and information.[12]
Furthermore, there is also speculation that an essentialist education helps in promoting the cultural lag.[12] This philosophy of education is very traditional in the mindset of passing on the knowledge of the culture via the academic disciplines. Thus, students are forced to think in the mindset of the larger culture, and individual creativity, and subversive investigation are often not emphasized, or even outright discouraged.