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Conservative movement to get students "back to basics" and study only the "essentials" in school.

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1930s - early 1960s - Concerned with the deterioration of learning and asserts that school is to transmit only "tested facts and truth."

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Arthur Bestor warned that government leaders did not learn about government through "field trips to the Mayor's office and City Hall." He did not believe in experiential learning.

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Admr. Hyman Rickover thought American education was inferior as Soviets were first in the "Race to Space" and urged schools to concentrate on basics to regain global educational superiority.

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The progressive cultural upheaval of the 1960s instigated another call in the early 1970s to "get back to basics."

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1980s "A Nation at Risk"  introduced Five New Basics, a standardized minimum requirement to graduate high school:

1. 4 years English
2. 3 years Math
3. 3 years Science
4. 3 years Social Studies
5. 1/2 year Computer Science

(2 years of foreign language required for students intending to attend college)

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As a response to the perceived moral breakdown of the 1960s, and coinciding with the 1970s - 1980s push for "return to basics" was a call for religion to be brought back into schools' curriculum. This prompted the creation of Christian day schools. In the 1980s, Christian schools were the most rapidly growing sector of American education.

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1987 - Hirsch called for cultural literacy and authored "What Every American Needs to Know." His term calling for "cultural" literacy was confusing to some, so he renamed the philosophy "Core Knowledge" since it rested on teaching students basic information.

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Essentialist Principle Has 3 Main tenets:

1. "The school's first task is to teach basic knowledge.

2. "Learning is hard work and requires discipline."

3. "The teacher is the locus of classroom authority."

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1. "The school's first task is to teach basic knowledge (3 R's)." Non-essentials (electives) were not the job of schools.

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2. "Learning is hard work and requires discipline." Asserted that basic skills and not the "interests of the child" were important. The immediate needs of the child were not important and effort is more important than interest. Stressed memorization and drill as a way of learning, and it required mental discipline rather than discovery.

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3. "The teacher is the locus of classroom authority." Asserted that the teacher is not a fellow learner or guide to students, but an authority figure who should be respected. The teacher demands respect and is tasked with the discipline of students.

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Essentialism was of great interest to me to read, as this was the exact time that I attended elementary through high school, graduating in 1982. Of note, my father was a director of curriculum for the entire state of Georgia, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. I remember these topics being discussed in our home, especially the Five New Basics and the new college entrance exams. I remember school involving copying down notebooks full of charts that had been written on lined chart paper and rolled up by a teacher to be used year after year! I think I was a very lucky learner during those years, because this mode of presentation (memorization and drill) suits my learning style. Or perhaps, more likely, my learning style evolved as a result of this sole type of presentation.

Very interesting read for me!