On Perennialism

Philosophy of Education: On Perennialism

Joshua Caesar O. Elegado, 3^rd Year Philosophy

University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi, Philippines

“One Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities.”

― Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

We cannot deny, that the sum of product “1+1” is nothing else but “2”, such an equation is immutable and therefore equates that there are things in this world that are immutable, and such can be the foundation of learning from day one until the end. Perrenialist Education teaches the basics and immutable truths, that proceed the necessary bits of knowledge a student learns and acquire to attain universal demands in terms of knowledge. The system of a Perrenialist Education is simply about fulfilling the narrative of “nothing ever changes”, in which it does not accept change because for a Perrenialist; if what works before works now, then why to change, right?”, this narrative means that if things or a certain knowledge is still relevant despite the plentiful years of it being used, it cannot change, there could be no possibility where the equation “1+1=3” in the reality. Classic is indeed relevant, but there are new things to explore, especially in the transition between the modern and contemporary, classics can be relevant, but it cannot proceed further else because change is real, in fact, chance must be real, we must acknowledge differences and not be monotonous, because if so, the school then is just another factory that produces the same product year after year multiplied by a thousand of the year at the very end of the day. To implicate, indeed, some things cannot change such as the equation of 1+1=2, and yes, such things are still relevant even if such things are to be used for more decades to come, but we can never deny that change is, in fact, real and is beyond the equation of 1+1=2.