PERENNIALISM

- “ perennial” which means everlasting

- A teacher-centered educational
philosophy that focuses on everlasting
ideas and universal truths
 PERENNIALISM
“ basic
philosophical belief in
unchangeable ideas or truth, reality,
knowledge and values”
(International Dictionary of Education)
 PERENNIALISM
Perennialist believe that one should teach the things that are of
everlasting pertinence to all people everywhere, and that the
emphasis should be on principles, not facts.
Since people are human, one should teach first about humans,
rather than machines or techniques, and about liberal, rather
than vocational topics.
 PERENNIALISM
The aim of education, according to
perennialist thinking, is to ensure that the
pupils acquire knowledge of these
unchanging principles or great ideas.
 EDUCATIONAL LEADERS
 Mortimer Adler

Jacques Maritain
Robert Hutchins
 Mortimer Adler’s Philosophy
For him, education should serve three purposes:
1. To teach people how to use their leisure time well
2. To teach people to earn their living ethically
3. To teach people to be responsible citizens in a democracy.
 Mortimer Adler’s Philosophy

He believes that each person has the innate ability to

do these three things, and that education should above all
prepare people to become lifelong learners. Education
never ends, in his view- age 60 is the earliest that anyone
can claim to be truly educated and only then if they have
devoted their life to learning.
 Jacques Maritain’s Famous Quotes
• We do not need a truth to serve us, we need a truth that we can
serve.
• Some truths are seen better through tears.
• Let us not go faster than God .It is our emptiness and our thirst
that He needs, not our plentitude.
• Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy
 Maritain’s Famous Books
Man and the State
The Degrees of Knowledge
The Person and the Common Good
An Introduction to Philosophy
Existence and the Existent
Art and Faith
 HUTCHINS’S PERENNIALIST CURRICULUM
WAS BASED ON THREE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
EDUCATION
1. Education must promote humankind’s continuing search for
truth. Whatever is true will always, and everywhere, be true;
in short, truth is universal and timeless.
2. Because the mind’s work is intellectual and focuses on ideas,
education must be focus on ideas. The cultivation of human
rationality is the essential function of education.
 Rationality
-means acting according to reason
-accepting only that which you have reason to believe
-it means that when you have to accept the judgement of another, you use
your own mind to determine whether it is wrong or correct. Is the
person educated in that field? Is it knowledge that someone is capable
of having?
Rationality is foremost a method of survival. It is a virtue only to the
extent that it encourages one’s survival.
 HUTCHINS’S PERENNIALIST CURRICULUM
WAS BASED ON THREE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
EDUCATION
3. Education should stimulate students to think thoughtfully about
significant ideas. Teachers should use correct and critical thinking
as their primary method,and they should require the same to
students.
 FORMS OF PERENNIALISM

• SECULAR PERENNIALISM
- Promoted by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler
- Comprises the humanist and scientific traditions
- Advocates using original works in education
- Suggest something that lasts an indefinitely long time, recurs again and
again, or is self-renewing
 FORMS OF PERENNIALISM

• RELIGIOUS OR THEISTIC PERENNIALISM

-developed first by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century
-religious perennialism continues to shape the nature of Catholic schools
throughout the world.
-believes in a world of reason, being, and God(metaphysics)and in truth as
reason and intuition
Perennialist see education as a sorting
mechanism, a way to identify and prepare
the intellectually gifted for leadership,
while providing vocational training for
the rest of society.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT
OF INSTRUCTION

• The aim of Perennialism in Education is to develop power of thought,

internalize truths that are universal and constant and to ensure that
students acquire understanding about the great ideas of Western
civilization.
• Perennialist recommend that students learn directly from the Great Books.
• Perennialist believe that schools should be structured so that students have
learning opportunities that will be meaningful for them upon maturing
into adults.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT
OF INSTRUCTION
• The Perennial philosophy of education believes that the
ultimate goal of education is to educate the whole
person.
• The Perennialist would like to see the classics used
more in the schools, even in the elementary schools.
 Classic Teaching Methods
• In the grammar stage (K–6), students are naturally adept at memorizing
through songs, chants, and rhymes. If you can get children in this stage to
sing or chant something, they will remember it for a lifetime.
• In the dialectic or logic stage (grades 7–9), teenaged students are naturally
more argumentative and begin to question authority and facts. They want
to know the “why” of something—the logic behind it. During this stage,
students learn reasoning, informal and formal logic, and how to argue with
wisdom and eloquence.
 Classic Teaching Methods
• The rhetoric stage (grades 10–12) is naturally when students become
independent thinkers and communicators. They study and practice
rhetoric, which is the art of persuasive speaking and effective writing that
pleases and delights the listener. Again, it is this approach to teaching
students based on their developmental stage that makes this approach so
very effective.
PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
ASSESSMENT
• Perennialists recommend that pupils learn from reading
and analyzing the works by story’s finest thinkers and
writers.
• The perennialists do use activity projects and
vocational thinking in their schools, but they do so only
as a secondary concern.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
ASSESSMENT
• St John’s College (1784 in Annapolis,Maryland)-among the best private
liberal arts colleges for the quality of its faculty and teaching
 Adopted the Great Books as a core curriculum in 1937
 Assigns reading in the fields of literature, philosophy and theology,
history and the social sciences, mathematics and natural science, and
music
 Students write extensively and attend seminars twice weekly to discuss
assigned readings
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
ASSESSMENT
 Seniors take oral examinations at the beginning and end of
their senior year and write a final essay that must be approved
before they are allowed to graduate
Students receive their grades only upon request and are
expected to learn only for learning’s sake
PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CURRICULUM
 Perennialist are educationally conservative in the requirement
of a curriculum focused upon fundamental subject areas, but
stress that the overall aim should be exposure to history’s finest
thinkers as models for discovery.
The student should be taught such basic subjects as English,
languages, history, mathematics,natural science, philosophy,
and fine arts.
PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CURRICULUM
 Perennialism curriculum is a theory of formal education that
suggest all systematic knowledge can be divided into four
types:
Art
Science
Philosophy
Mathematics
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
 A perennialist
classroom aims to be closely
organized and well-disciplined environment
which develops in pupils a lifelong quest for the
truth.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

THE TEACHER
 Perennialism is a teacher-centered philosophy,in which the teacher is less
concerned with pupils interest and those concerned with transferring
knowledge from older generations to younger generations.
 The teacher will focus on the importance of reading and will often use the
underlying reading lessons to make a moral point.
 Teachers use history,religion,literature,and the laws of science to reinforce
universal ideas that have the potential to solve any problem in any era.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

THE TEACHER
 Perennialist disapprove teachers requiring pupils to absorb
massive amounts of disconnected information.
 The teacher,to the perennialist,is a mental disciplinarian with
highly developed logical skills,capable of teaching logical
thinking and the use of reason to his pupils
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

THE PUPILS
 The student is seen as rational being with tendencies toward truth and
knowledge.
 The rational power of the learner tends to be viewed from a position of
faculty psychology.
- faculty of reason
- faculty of memory
- faculty of will
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

DISCIPLINE
• Pupils should be taught hard work, respect for authority, and discipline.
• Discipline in the classroom is essential to learning.
• A noisy classroom is not a desirable place for learning to take place. Order
is vital.
• Education requires the mastery of content, of subject matter.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

METHOD OF TEACHING
• A particular strategy with modern perennialists is to teach
scientific reasoning, not facts.
• Drill, repetition and memorization are vital in the learning process.
• Perennialists urge schools to spend more time teaching about
concepts and explaining how these concepts are meaningful to
pupils.
 PERENNIALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

METHOD OF TEACHING
 Perennialist suggest that a greater emphasis be placed on
teacher-guided seminars, where students and teachers engage in
Socratic dialogues, or mutual inquiry sessions, to develop an
enhanced understanding of history’s most timeless concepts.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PERENNIALISM

1.Education should be same for everyone and everywhere

2. Focuses on the development of rational powers of man
3. Imparts knowledge of eternal truths which is unchanging and universal
4. Education is to acquaint the students with cultural heritage
5. Education is not an imitation of life but a preparation of life
6. Pupils should be taught great works of literature
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PERENNIALISM

7.Disagree the role of school to inject democracy in pupil’s mind

8. Supports liberal education
 PRACTICAL APPLICATION
• Using the scientific method as a way to learn about the trials of
experimentation and the logic and reason behind such things.
• Reading classical works on literature to understand historical such as
religion, war, and morality.
• Use guided discussions to help pupils understand main ideas and concepts.
• Use comprehensive testing to enforce understanding of key themes.