Fun and Games of Essentialism

Essentialism is an educational philosophy that focuses on using hands-on interactive games to learn or recall material. Personally, as a student I LOVED these kinds of learning games. In reference to the video, nothing was better as a student then when you walked into class and saw the board set up for jeopardy. For students, these kinds of interactive learning games is what makes them engaged in the material. It promotes healthy competition, quick thinking, and recall of memory. Some disadvantages however, can be that the students get upset when they lose or gain a sense of aggressiveness towards their peers if an answer is incorrect.
In the video, the students were engaged in a geography game to review for an upcoming test. These were appropriate topics for essentialism because it allowed for memorization. Much of geography is memorization. You are memorizing where states or countries are, how they are spelled, and who is living there. It is simple and an appropriate topic to use to recall information.
To make the teacher's activity to that of a more constructive one, I would recommend that she should have the students connect geography to concepts they have learned with essential questions. For example, in the question "What continent is inhabitable", the correct answer is Antarctica. The teacher could have made a connection by asking What features about Antarctica make it inhabitable?

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