Criticisms of Bloom and an Introduction to Essentialism
Bloom: Criticism
Bloom was often called vengeful, reactionary, and antidemocratic for his attacks on American students and universities.
The Closing of the American Mind
- Bloom’s choice of title was widely criticised.
- Critics were outraged that Bloom labelled young Americans close-minded.
As philosopher
Bloom’s status as a philosopher was often criticised. Critics maintained that his writings were only a study of classics, with no philosophy in them.
Great Books
- Bloom’s Great Books course was criticised for a restricted and narrow conception of the classics.
- Chomsky criticised Bloom’s emphasis on a Great Books curriculum, arguing its effect would be: students will end up knowing and understanding virtually nothing.
Social issues
Critics point out that Bloom discussed all major social and political issues but was silent on gay rights despite the rapid spread of the concept at that time.
Essentialism: Introduction
Character
Essentialism is a content-centred educational approach. The traditional or back-to-the-basics approach.
Core commitment
- Our culture has a core of common knowledge that should be transmitted to students in a systematic, disciplined manner.
- Essentialism stresses the essential knowledge and skills that productive citizens should have, rather than a set of external truths.
Against progressive education
Essentialism is critical of progressive education, which essentialists believe damages the intellectual and moral standards of students.
Aim of education
The essentialist sees the aim of education as intellectual discipline fostered by study in key subject areas.
Curriculum
Essentialists believe the curriculum should be restricted to reading, writing, and arithmetic at the elementary level and five basic subjects at the secondary level: English, mathematics, science, history, and foreign language.
Teacher
The teacher is an authority in a discipline who passes the discipline’s knowledge to the student, who also learns the cognitive skills needed to master the knowledge taught.
Essentialism: Educational Value
Essentialism’s three major principles:
- Basic knowledge: the school’s task is to teach basic knowledge. Basic subject matter should be mastered at the elementary and secondary school levels to eliminate illiteracy at the college level.
- Discipline: learning is hard work and requires discipline. Memorisation, drill, and problem-solving methods foster learning.
- Teacher as focus: the teacher is the focus of classroom activity. The teacher decides what students ought to learn, presents the subject matter in logical sequence, and has the right to discipline students to create a conducive learning environment.
The article closes the Bloom chapter with the standard criticisms of his work, then introduces essentialism as the educational theory closest to Bloom’s commitments. The next chapter will continue with William Bagley, the father of essentialism, and progressivism as the alternative.
The standard criticisms of Bloom
Bloom was often called vengeful, reactionary, and antidemocratic in his attacks on American students and universities. The labels stuck because the attacks were sharp and because Bloom himself made little effort to soften them. The criticisms cluster around four themes.
The first criticism is about the book’s title. The Closing of the American Mind was treated by many critics as outrageous: it labelled young Americans close-minded in a generation that prided itself on openness. The title’s bluntness was part of what made the book a bestseller; it was also part of what produced the most aggressive criticism. A more measured title might have made the book less famous and less attacked at the same time.
The second criticism is about Bloom’s status as a philosopher. Critics maintained that his writings were only a study of classics, with no philosophy in them. The charge is partly fair: Bloom did most of his philosophical work through interpretation of other philosophers rather than through original philosophical construction. His defenders respond that interpretation of the great philosophers is itself philosophical work and that the line between original philosophy and serious interpretation is not as sharp as the criticism assumes.
The third criticism is about the Great Books curriculum. Bloom’s emphasis on the Great Books was criticised for a restricted and narrow conception of the classics. The list was heavily Western, heavily male, and excluded important voices. Noam Chomsky criticised Bloom’s Great Books emphasis directly, arguing that the effect would be that students will end up knowing and understanding virtually nothing. Chomsky’s case was that the kind of cultural literacy a Great Books curriculum produces is shallow, missing the deep engagement with how power and language actually work in the modern world.
The fourth criticism is about Bloom’s silence on certain issues. Bloom discussed most major social and political issues of his time but was silent on gay rights, despite the rapid spread of gay-rights movements during the years he was writing. Critics took the silence as a deliberate omission and as evidence that Bloom’s analytic frame did not have the resources to engage with the developments he ignored.
A serious reader engages with each criticism and decides what survives. The first criticism is mostly stylistic; the title was deliberately provocative and Bloom accepted the cost. The second has some merit but does not destroy Bloom’s contribution; he was a serious thinker even if his vehicle was interpretation. The third has weight; the Great Books canon does need broadening and modern adaptations have done so. The fourth points to a real gap; readers should not pretend it is not there.
The bestseller title, his philosophical status, the Great Books curriculum, and his silence on gay rights
(1) Title: critics were outraged at labelling young Americans close-minded. (2) Philosopher status: he worked through interpretation rather than original construction; defenders argue interpretation is philosophical work. (3) Great Books: the canon was too restricted and narrow; Chomsky argued students would end up knowing and understanding virtually nothing. (4) Silence on gay rights: a deliberate-looking omission despite the rapid spread of the movements he ignored.
Essentialism introduced
The educational theory closest to Bloom’s commitments is essentialism. The article closes by introducing essentialism so that the next chapter can turn to William Bagley, its founder.
Essentialism is a content-centred educational approach. It is sometimes called the traditional or back-to-the-basics approach. The basic conviction: our culture has a core of common knowledge that should be transmitted to students in a systematic, disciplined manner. The school’s job is to deliver this core to students and to ensure they master it.
The contrast with perennialism is real but narrow. Perennialism focuses on the enduring great ideas; essentialism focuses on the essentials that students must know to function. The two overlap heavily, especially in the early years of education. The major difference is that essentialism is more open to including practical content (basic vocational skills, useful information) that perennialism would treat as secondary to the great ideas.
Essentialism stresses the essential knowledge and skills that productive citizens should have, rather than a set of external truths. The shift from external truths to essential knowledge and skills is the essentialist move. The aim is not to put students in contact with the highest truth (the perennialist goal); the aim is to give them the basics they need to function as informed citizens and competent workers.
Essentialism is sharply critical of progressive education. The two theories grew up in the same American mid-twentieth century and were direct rivals. Essentialists believe progressive education damages the intellectual and moral standards of students by neglecting discipline, ignoring the core knowledge, and substituting student-centred discovery for systematic instruction. The next chapter will work through the essentialist critique of progressivism in detail through William Bagley’s work.
The essentialist aim of education is intellectual discipline fostered by study in key subject areas. The discipline matters as much as the subject content. A student who has mastered the content without developing the disciplined work habits has not been essentialist-educated; a student with the disciplined habits and the content together has been.
The curriculum is correspondingly defined. At the elementary level: reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the secondary level: five basic subjects, English, mathematics, science, history, and foreign language. The list is shorter than most modern school curricula. The essentialist would argue that focusing the curriculum produces deeper mastery than spreading attention across many subjects.
The teacher’s role is to be an authority in a discipline who passes the discipline’s knowledge to the student, while also teaching the cognitive skills needed to master that knowledge. The relationship is similar to the perennialist teacher’s relationship to the student: the teacher knows the material, the student does not yet know it, and the teacher’s job is to bring the student to mastery.
A content-centred educational approach that treats systematic disciplined transmission of common cultural knowledge as the school’s main job
Sometimes called the traditional or back-to-the-basics approach. Our culture has a core of common knowledge that should be transmitted to students systematically. The aim is intellectual discipline fostered by study in key subject areas. The curriculum is restricted to the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic at the elementary level; English, mathematics, science, history, and a foreign language at secondary). The teacher is an authority who delivers the discipline’s knowledge.
Essentialism’s three principles
Essentialism gives three major principles for educational practice. The three together describe what an essentialist school actually does.
The first is basic knowledge. The school’s task is to teach basic knowledge. Basic subject matter should be mastered at the elementary and secondary school levels to eliminate illiteracy at the college level. The phrase eliminate illiteracy at the college level is the essentialist diagnostic test: a higher-education system in which large numbers of students arrive unable to read, write, or do basic arithmetic at college standards is a system whose lower levels have failed. The essentialist solution is to do the basic work better in the early years, so colleges can start at college level rather than at remedial level.
The second is discipline. Learning is hard work and requires discipline. Memorisation, drill, and problem-solving methods foster learning. The principle directly opposes the progressive view that learning should be interesting and discovery-driven; the essentialist responds that some learning is hard and uninteresting and that students need the discipline to do it anyway. The hard work is part of what produces the mastery the essentialist values.
The third is teacher as focus. The teacher is the focus of classroom activity. The teacher decides what students ought to learn and is responsible for presenting the subject matter in a logical sequence, and has the right to discipline students to create a conducive learning environment. The classroom is teacher-led, not student-led.
These three principles together produce a school structure that contrasts sharply with the progressive school of Dewey. Where the progressive school is student-centred, content-flexible, and discovery-based, the essentialist school is teacher-centred, content-defined, and discipline-based. The two theories produce different classrooms and different graduates.
The argument between essentialism and progressivism is one of the major debates of twentieth-century American education and is still going on in different forms. A modern teacher works inside a system that has usually compromised between the two, taking some discipline from essentialism and some flexibility from progressivism. The next chapter, on William Bagley, works through the essentialist side of the debate in more detail.
Basic knowledge, discipline, and teacher as focus of classroom activity
(1) Basic knowledge: the school teaches basic knowledge; mastery at the elementary and secondary levels eliminates illiteracy at the college level. (2) Discipline: learning is hard work; memorisation, drill, and problem-solving foster it; this directly opposes the progressive view that learning should be interesting throughout. (3) Teacher as focus: the teacher decides what students ought to learn, presents it in logical sequence, and has the right to discipline students to create a conducive environment.
How was this article?