dership, interwoven with an Essentialist philosophical interpretation of the literature, will be presented.
In brief, Essentialism is a theory arguing that curriculum must consist essentially of the disciplined study in give great areas: 1) command of the mother tongue and the systematic study of grammar, literature and writing; 2) mathematics; 3) history; 4) sciences; and 5) foreign language (Bestor, 1956). To the essentialist, certain so-called academic areas of systematized knowledge best represent the race experience that is to be transmitted to children and youth (Tanner & Tanner, 1975). Indeed, this idea is encapsulated in the early work of Bagley (1907), who called for a focus in the classroom on the "race experience," by which he meant the collected knowledge pertaining to the "race" or culture of students being taught. Bagley, according to tanner and tanner (1975), used the term "race" in a manner that is not common today; while contemporary educators hear "race" and think of ethnicity, Essentialists equated "race" with membership in a specific society with an identifiable history, language, and literature, art, body of mathematical and scientific knowledge, and so forth. It was this "essential" set of data or information that was to serve as the basis of curriculum; consequently, in a multicultural society, Essentialism does not preclude the use of multicultural materials in support of the five great subject areas presented above.
Tenets of Essentialism a articulated by Bagley (1907) and Beston (1956) are the following:
Education requires hard work and effort and regardless of interest, students must complete assigned tasks with or without external motivation;
Discipline in the classroom is vital to learning;
Adults (e.g., administrators, teachers, parents) must provide direction;
The classroom is teacher-centered; the teacher is a professional better able to determine which students will need in...