Promotes attentive personal consideration about personal character, beliefs, and choices. The primary question existentialists ask is whether they want to define who they are themselves, or whether they want society to define them. Although freedom and individuality are highly valued American principles, existentialists argue that there is an underlying message of conformity. Rather than the belief that the mind needs to understand the universe, existentialists assume that the mind creates its universe. Their beliefs incorporate the inevitability of death, as the afterlife cannot be experienced personally with the current senses, focusing on the fact that the experience we have of the world is temporary and should be appreciated as such.

Education from an existentialist perspective places the primary emphasis on students’ directing their own learning. Students search for their own meaning and direction in life as well as define what is true and what is false, what is pleasant and satisfying, what is unpleasant and dissatisfying, and what is right or wrong. The goal of an existentialist education is to train students to develop their own unique understanding of life.

An existentialist classroom typically involves the teachers and school laying out what they feel is important and allowing the students to choose what they study. All students work on different, self-selected assignments at their own pace. Teachers act as facilitators, directing students in finding the most appropriate methods of study or materials, and are often seen as an additional resource, alongside books, computers, television, newspapers, and other materials that are readily available to students.