Educational perennialism is a normative educational philosophy holding that instruction should prioritize principles that have persisted across centuries rather than transient facts. Its secular strand, developed by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, promotes a universal curriculum grounded in the common, essential nature of all human beings, centered on the Great Books as the enduring conversation of human thought. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Disputed
Most Effective ForIts own advocates hold it suits cultivating rational, independent reasoning through direct engagement with great works and Socratic dialogue; Hutchins and Adler implemented it at the University of Chicago, where it still strongly influences the Undergraduate Common Core. 1 Central QuestionShould education be organized around a canon of enduring works and principles held in common by all human beings, rather than around vocational skills or the facts of the moment? 1 Connections
Associated With
Social Reconstructionism's own live entity-description: one of the traditional foursome of American educational philosophies alongside this atlas's own Essentialism, Perennialism and Progressivism entries.
Developed By
Source Wikipedia: Mortimer J. Adler
Source Wikipedia: Robert Maynard Hutchins
Includes
Source Wikipedia: Educational perennialism
Policies Informed
Paideia Program's own live entity-description: it translates Adler's perennialist philosophy, already recorded in this atlas as its own Perennialism entry, into a concrete school structure.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Educational perennialism
Wikimedia Foundationopening paragraph
Educational perennialism is a normative educational philosophy. Perennialists believe that the priority of education should be to teach principles that have persisted for centuries, not facts.
Secular perennialism section
implemented these ideas with great success at the University of Chicago, where they still strongly influence the Undergraduate Common Core
View the Source Wikipedia: Robert Maynard Hutchins
Wikimedia FoundationDeveloped By: Robert Hutchins, Great Books / Educational philosophy sectionQuote, Developed By: Robert Hutchins, Great Books / Educational philosophy section
Hutchins worked with Mortimer Adler to develop curriculum reforms grounded in the Great Books of the Western World program.
Wikipedia: Mortimer J. Adler
Wikimedia FoundationDeveloped By: Mortimer Adler, Great Books sectionQuote, Developed By: Mortimer Adler, Great Books section
Adler co-founded, with Hutchins, the Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation.
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