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Introduction

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

This course explores school geography, focusing upon how geography is currently being taught and understood. While studying this course you will read about the significance of geography as a subject, considering what are the defining concepts for school geography and its educational value. The course also includes a lesson plan and a look at definitions of geography as a medium of education.

Find out more about studying with The Open University by visiting our online prospectus.

Learning outcomes

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

After studying this course, you should be able to:

open up and ‘map’ geography and the ways the subject is understood (and sometimes misunderstood)
examine ways in which the subject is under pressure – especially with regard to the ‘chasm’ that is said to exist between university and school geography
establish reasons why the subject is important in relation to topical debates about sustainable development and citizenship
evaluate the power of the subject via a practical lesson idea
come to a ‘definition’ of geography in education.

1.1 Chasms and great divides: can we imagine a world without geography?

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Many school systems around the world do not have geography with the status of a separate subject. Schools in England and Wales are different. Here, geography is a national curriculum subject (5–14 years) and the former Minister for Schools (Stephen Twigg) has asserted the subject's importance in several speeches in 2004. For example, he says:

‘The unique contribution of geography is preparing young people to engage with the real world, to make judgements about events, to make responsible personal decisions and to understand the complicated interactions between places and people.’
(Twigg, 2004)

Click 'view document' to open and read all of Stephen Twigg's speech.

View document

So, what is the power of school geography? This course is concerned with how geography is understood. What particular educational value does it have?

The subject of geography goes on developing and changing in the universities. In 1993, exactly one hundred years after the Geographical Association was set up to ‘further the study and teaching of geography’, Andrew Goudie declared there was a ‘chasm’ between university geography and school geography. Read his short article by clicking on the link below.

Click 'view document' to open the file in a new window

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This was not to argue for schools following whatever direction universities choose to take. Far from it. But it was a call for different academic communities to stay connected. Without the wider discipline, school geography will lose its way (and vice versa?).

Goudie probably underestimated the extent of the additional pressures on teachers. For example, if we become too subject focused we may lose sight of the individual needs of children (and indeed, the ways schools serve wider societal goals).

Thus, the student voice is important and the subject can seem fragmented and distant.

See what one student, Jessica, had to say by clicking on 'view document' below.

View document

Wider and deeper considerations are also important. In a significant article, Bill Marsden points out some of the dangers of teaching ‘for a good cause’ – such as citizenship or sustainable development. It is vital to maintain a clear distinction between propaganda and education, he argues, and rigorous disciplined enquiry is the best insurance that exists that we can avoid indoctrination.

Click 'view document' to read Bill Marsden's essay ‘On taking the geography out of geographical education’.

View document

We could argue that it is for this reason that schools need subject specialists, so that what is taught and what is learned stays independent of central authority telling us what to teach (or how to teach it).

It follows from this that teachers need to be learners, and work hard at refining their specialist subject knowledge. Can ‘anyone’ really teach geography? I don't think so!

Follow up your thinking on these issues by doing the tasks in Activity 1.

Activity 1

Click 'view document' to read David Lambert on Mapping geography.

View document

You can re-read Jessica's story by clicking on 'view document' below.

View document

Click on 'view document' below to re-read Bill Marsden's essay.

View document

The audio clip below contains a discussion on the teaching of geography in schools taken from BBC Radio 4's Today programme, 16 December 2002.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 1 >

Audio 1

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Transcript: Audio 1

Host

Now here’s a question – does the teaching of geography matter any more?

The Government it seems is reducing the number of teacher training places in geography in England over the next few years and now one ex-teacher who has carried out a survey of geography teachers across south-east England is claiming that the subject has been hijacked by environmentalists. Geography (is) no longer, as it was in my day, about maps, rock formations, glaciers and meandering rivers but more about pollution, global warming and world citizenship. Well, Alex Standish is here in the studio, David Lambert, the chief executive of the Geography Association, is in our Cambridge studio. Alex Standish, first of all you’ve carried out this survey. Is geography not what it used to be, then, in your view, or in the view of the teachers you’ve been speaking to?

Alex

Yeah, I’d agree with that statement. My concern about geography is that it is becoming increasingly focused around values and less about knowledge, and the problem with that is that it’s telling students how they should think and act in relation to problems in the world, instead of giving them the knowledge and leaving it up to them to make up their own minds about how they should behave and what decisions they should make.

Host

So you are saying it’s more about attitudes than facts. It’s fundamentally biased, is your accusation, is it?

Alex

If you look at something like development – development is taught very much in the language of sustainable development which is about environmentalism and cultural values. And this sort of suggests that cultures and less developed countries shouldn’t try and transform themselves in a significant way; that development should be in tune with cultural conditions, they shouldn’t be disruptive. But if you want significant development to take place then you are going to need to transform culture and you are also going to need to change significantly economically and I think that the problem with sustainable development is it’s a very limited – has limited aspirations and is not really going to significantly improve the lives of people in less developed countries.

Host

Well let’s bring David Lambert in here. Is he right? Is this a new approach? Maybe we should call geography – I don’t know – give it a new name – environmental studies.

David

Oh, I hope not. No, no geography is on the curriculum because it is a very valuable, disciplined enquiry. In fact, one of the reasons to have geography on the curriculum is to guard against indoctrination and propaganda. If we had environmental studies on the curriculum, maybe what Alex Standish is saying would come true.

No, geography is vital, geography is to be valued. It is about factual knowledge of the world – where we are in the world, how we are placed in relation to others, what links us to others, but it’s also about understanding and the geography curriculum has a pretty big job to do – to introduce children to a complex, rapidly-changing and very uncertain world.

Host

But it’s a different sort of geography, isn’t it. There are children out there now who presumably don’t know what an ox-bow lake is or how it was formed, or how glaciers deposit sediment. It is a different sort of subject that is being taught.

David

I wouldn’t deny that. I think when you’ve got one hour or so a week to teach geography in, you have a difficult decision to make about what to include and what to exclude. And in a finite curriculum, choices have to be made and what Alex Standish is saying is useful from one point of view, and that is, that what decides what is taught is always the basis of some sort of value decision – we decide what is right to teach.

Host

Alex Standish, the world moves on. Glacial sediments and deposits aren’t as important these days, global warming maybe is.

Alex

I agree that the world should move on and I think geography should change. I’m not arguing that geography needs to turn the clock back and sort of be solely about rocks and rivers and things, but there are a lot of significant change happening in the world today. Socially things are changing very rapidly and, if anything, geography needs to change significantly to keep up with these changes.

David

But if we are going to prepare young people for a rapidly changing and complex world we have to introduce them to the fact that facts themselves are contingent – I mean, we had the foreign secretary on this program on Friday talking about Europe as a geographic entity, but also Europe as a concept. I mean, where is the boundaries of Europe? These are things to be argued about.

Host

David Lambert, Alex Standish I’m afraid we must leave it there. Obviously, no doubt we’ll be having emails from our listeners who have got their own views on geography past and present.

Host 2

Absolutely, interrupting the work of the latest geography project.

End transcript: Audio 1

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These tasks can be done on your own, but they are best done in a group, if possible.

Draw your own ‘map’ of geography, referring to the resource on 'Mapping geography' above.
Do you consider there to be a ‘chasm’ between geography as a discipline and the teaching of geography in school?
What is your initial reaction to:
- the Today programme question? ‘Does the teaching of geography matter anymore?’ (Listen to the interview by clicking on the link above.)
- Charles Gritzner's question, ‘Can “anyone” (really) teach geography?’
- Jessica's story.
In what ways can teaching geography become propaganda? Think back to Bill Marsden's article called ‘On taking the geography out of geographical education’.

2 The subject discipline

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

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2.1 The significance of geography as a subject

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

It has been argued that geography ‘has been hijacked by environmentalists’. Following the publication of his original article, ‘Constructing a value map’ (see under the link below), Alex Standish (a former geography teacher) appeared on the Radio 4 Today programme to discuss this topic. Listen to the interview again and read the transcript again by clicking on the link below.

Read Alex Standish's 'Constructing a value map' by clicking 'view document' below.

View document

Listen again to the radio interview.

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Audio 2

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Transcript: Audio 2

Host

Now here’s a question – does the teaching of geography matter any more?

Alex

Host

So you are saying it’s more about attitudes than facts. It’s fundamentally biased, is your accusation, is it?

Alex

Host

Well let’s bring David Lambert in here. Is he right? Is this a new approach? Maybe we should call geography – I don’t know – give it a new name – environmental studies.

David

Host

David

Host

Alex Standish, the world moves on. Glacial sediments and deposits aren’t as important these days, global warming maybe is.

Alex

David

Host

David Lambert, Alex Standish I’m afraid we must leave it there. Obviously, no doubt we’ll be having emails from our listeners who have got their own views on geography past and present.

Host 2

Absolutely, interrupting the work of the latest geography project.

End transcript: Audio 2

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The discussion shows a three-way lack of a shared understanding of geography between Alex, the presenter and David Lambert.

The presenter worried that ‘there are children out there who maybe don't know what an oxbow lake is’. Both Alex and David agreed. Both were not too worried about this supposed lack of particular knowledge, but for different reasons.

The discussion began to show why a subject discipline like geography is important. As a form of 'disciplined enquiry' it can ensure against woolly environmental propaganda. What divided David and Alex was their take on ‘values’, and Alex's insistence that the teaching of ‘facts’ can be done in a value-free way.

The radio discussion begins with the provocative question/headline used on the previous screen: ‘Does the teaching of geography matter any more?’ Taken in its entirety, the discussion also shows the limits – and opportunities – of the popular media. All of us can provide a long and reasoned answer to the question. But can we provide the short and direct answer that listeners need at 8.20am, just before the sports news, to make it stick in the mind.

Without such clarity and directness, it could be argued that the public comprehension of geography and its significance will remain dull and blurred. The piece, in fact, showed three people almost talking at cross-purposes to each other!

Thus:

Standish asserts that school geography now ‘tells students how to think and act in relation to problems in the world’ (instead of) ‘giving them the knowledge and leaving it to them to make up their own minds about how they should behave and the decisions they should make.’
Lambert retorts that, ‘One reason to have geography in the curriculum is to guard against indoctrination and propaganda. If “environmental studies” were on the curriculum maybe what Alex is saying would come true.’
And the presenter worries about change – schools no longer teaching what he learned at school.

Several texts that extend the discussion are supplied in the links below.

Click 'view document' to read Alex Standish's 'Valuing (adult) geographic knowledge'.

View document

Read David Lambert on 'The power and relevance of geography in education' by clicking on 'view document' below.

View document

Read Alastair Bonnet's 'Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and academic geographical imaginations' by clicking 'view document'.

View document

But to argue that teaching geography can be accomplished simply by focusing on ‘the facts’ is in itself careless – of the need to show pupils how to use good description, analysis and evaluation in order to respond intelligently to disputes, controversies and arguments about issues.

Subjects like geography develop approaches to ‘disciplined enquiry’ that use a small number of very important concepts. When these are used and grown, using real data and examples, they do not ‘tell’ pupils what to think, but help them to think about matters that are truly complex.

A letter published by The Independent in June 2004 ('European apathy to the next generation'; click 'view document' below to read) illustrates what could be a problem when subjects – and their significance in helping us think more intelligently – get forgotten.

View document

It is perhaps not too surprising to find youngsters turned off in a ‘Key Skills’ lesson for which ‘Europe’ was the vehicle. For isn't this the wrong way around? Shouldn't the skills be serving the content? And shouldn't the future of Europe (as a concept, as a place, as a market, as a source of identity.) be the content of geography lessons? Study Europe geographically and we can avoid all that anxiety about indoctrination.

And the key concepts? Go to the section on Geography's eductional power; page 5 of this course.

But first, explore the ideas in the radio interview and The Independent letter further in Activity 2.

Activity 2

Click "view document" to re-read the 'European apathy of the next generation'.

View document

Remind yourself of the Radio 4Today programme interview.

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Audio 3

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Transcript: Audio 3

Host

Now here’s a question – does the teaching of geography matter any more?

Alex

Host

So you are saying it’s more about attitudes than facts. It’s fundamentally biased, is your accusation, is it?

Alex

Host

Well let’s bring David Lambert in here. Is he right? Is this a new approach? Maybe we should call geography – I don’t know – give it a new name – environmental studies.

David

Host

David

Host

Alex Standish, the world moves on. Glacial sediments and deposits aren’t as important these days, global warming maybe is.

Alex

David

Host

David Lambert, Alex Standish I’m afraid we must leave it there. Obviously, no doubt we’ll be having emails from our listeners who have got their own views on geography past and present.

Host 2

Absolutely, interrupting the work of the latest geography project.

End transcript: Audio 3

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Now try to answer these questions:

Do you agree with Standish's assertion that ‘geography is increasingly focused around values and less about knowledge'?
Do you agree with his analysis of the resulting ‘problem’ – that geography becomes propaganda?
What do you think Lambert means when he retorts that geography may be the safeguard against propaganda?
Read the letter to The Independent newspaper (June 2004). Compose an imaginary response asserting the strengths of a curriculum that emphasises ‘disciplined enquiry’ (subjects) rather than ‘skills’.
The Radio 4 presenter introduced his piece with the question: ‘Does the teaching of geography matter any more?’ Does it?

3.1 Using and developing a popular topic: migration

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

‘Oh, what joy to see you again.’

Just one line from a folk song on a very familiar theme, to be found in traditional Irish music, can help us imagine the magnitude of the decision to migrate, especially if forced by hunger, oppression or fear. The line is written by a father to a son. They both know they will not see each other again.

Like many topics in geography, teaching migration well is challenging – because the human dimension is often multi-faceted and holds more subtlety than immediately meets the eye.

It is now appreciated that since the moves were made to ‘harden up’ the subject in the second half of the twentieth century, by importing approaches from the physical sciences, a number of educational deficiencies have resulted. It is, for example, unhelpful to overemphasise the idea that human behaviour is predictable and subject to immutable and universal ‘laws’.

It is now commonplace to ‘reduce’ migration to an essentially mechanical process of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. The topic becomes disconnected from experience.

In the text that follows, we explore an approach to using a song as a resource for thinking geographically (not merely mechanically) about migration.

There are many ways in which music can be used in geography classrooms. For instance, some teachers use appropriate music in the background, almost like an ‘audio wall poster’, when teaching Brazil, or Bangladesh. Now try Activity 3.

Activity 3

Here, we are going to use two verses from a song, 'Kilkelly' by Mick Moloney, Jimmy Keane and Robbie O'Connell, as the prime source of data.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 4 >

Audio 4

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Kilkelly Ireland, 1890.

My dear and loving son John,

I suppose that I must be close on eighty – it’s thirty years since you’re gone.

Because of all of the money you sent me,

I’m still living out on my own.

Michael has built himself a fine house, and Brigitte’s daughters have grown.

And thank you for sending your family picture,

Your lovely young women and men.

You say that you might even come for a visit,

Oh what joy to see you again.

Kilkelly Ireland, 1892.

My dear brother John,

I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner to tell you, but father has gone.

He was living with Brigitte – she says he was cheerful

And healthy right down to the end.

You should have seen him playing with the grandchildren of Pat McNamarra your friend.

And we buried him alongside of mother, down at the Kilkelly church yard.

He was a strong and a feisty old man – considering his life was so hard.

And it’s funny the way he kept talking about you –

He called for you at the end.

Oh why don’t you think about coming to visit,

We’d all love to see you again?

End transcript: Audio 4

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Listening to a song lyric is not easy and may not have an authentic feel as a classroom experience. Therefore, it helps to have visual resources too. Take a look at the image below of building the US Railroad.

Figure 11

Also, click here to go onto the internet search engine Google, select ‘Images’ and type in the search box, one at a time, ‘Ellis Island’ and ‘Irish famine’ and see what comes up. It helps to have the whole lyric of the song in print form (click on 'view transcript' above). But it is essential to have the students ‘do something’ to focus their attention.

This is what to do:

Give each student a large piece of plain white paper.
Ask them to draw, very roughly, North America, Atlantic Ocean and the British Isles. They may need guidance to ensure that they use the whole sheet.
Mark Kilkelly, a small town in Southern Ireland.
After this preparatory work is complete, students are told that they are not allowed to do any more labelling or annotation using words. They are to use the map to record events referred to in the song they are about to hear, but are to do this using symbols, not words.
Some students will have done better than others. Play the song again – this time you can use the lyric sheet if you want.
Collect the lyric sheets in – this forces the students to use their maps as their sole source of 'data'.
Students can spend a little time in pairs, checking the story.
Finally a class discussion can be held, guided by questions such as:

Who emigrated from Ireland?

Who stayed?

Analyse this differentiation.

For what reasons did the brothers emigrate?

How did migration benefit BOTH the place of origin and the place of destination of

the migrant?

Who returned?

Why?

There is a need to open out the discussion. For homework it would be fun – and very interesting – to ask students to ‘map’ their own family migration pattern – or a fictitious family in a TV soap or book.

Now evaluate this lesson. In what ways was it successful? In what ways could you improve it?

In a way, it is difficult not to think geographically about migration, for it is, by definition, a spatial process (or, more precisely, a spatial outcome of social, cultural and economic processes). The impact shows a certain ‘friction of distance’ – more brothers went to England and at least one was able to return, compared with John, who alone went to America, unlikely to return.

But even more significant than this, we see that places are distinctive, but have porous boundaries. Places are interconnected. To this day, there are few places in the world that are not touched by an Irish diaspora. It is fascinating that distant Irish pubs are in some ways more Irish than pubs in Dublin! This observation is a good way to explore what we mean by identity. Using the song, we can perhaps accept that most people who move (that is, most people these days) have multiple identities – at least, more so than the father who remained in his Kilkelly home.

Could you now define what it means to 'think geographically' about migration?

4.1 Geography as a medium of education

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Geography is what geographers do.
(Anon)

Aren't we all geographers now?
(Buttimer, 2004)

Define history. Now define geography
(Gritzner, 2004)

Charles Gritzner supplies us with one of those succinct – and useful – definitions that reminds us that geography is concerned with place, description and explanation of patterns. He interestingly adds the moral dimension – though we can imagine that the question ‘… why care?’ may attract the response ‘I don't!’

What is where, why there and why care?
(Gritzner, 2004)

Even so, it is a far more useful definition than the ‘cop out’ that ‘we do what we do’. This looseness invites the discipline to fray at the edges. There are possibly large numbers of professional academics who ‘don't care’ whether their designation is geography or one of the many sub-divisions that exist, from geomorphologist to demographer to risk expert!

However, it has to be conceded as Rice et al. (2003) candidly admit, that the discipline, if it exists, has an identity crisis.

Maybe it is time to identify – for school geography, a subset of the wider discipline – a small number of defining concepts. This is a worthy goal for subject associations such as the Geographical Association (GA) to work for because, without such a list (which has to be short to be useful), we stand no chance of satisfying a number of additional educational demands on the subject. For example:

In what way does understanding in geography develop through the school years?

Unless we know which concepts count as ‘geographical’, how can we begin to answer this question in other than generalities? It is worth recording that the English national curriculum level descriptions and GCSE grade criteria are of no help.

The GA offers a description as a starting point: click on 'view document' to read it.

View document

The point to realise is that the ‘stuff’ of geography is expressed in terms of possibilities and aspirations to wider educational goals – the spiritual, the moral, the social and the cultural – as if to say, ‘the content alone is not enough’.

It is also significant to realise that perhaps four threshold concepts emerge from this list:

Environment
Interdependence
Place
Scale and Futures

Does this help identify what is special about school geography at a conceptual level? Do some critical thinking in Activity 4.

Activity 4

Click 'view document' to re-open the GA's 'Does geography matter?'.

View document

Critically assess the ‘definition’ of school geography expressed in the GA's document.
- What is missing (if anything)?
- What are the strengths of the list?
Critically assess the list of ‘threshold’ concepts, derived from the definition and given.
- Are these helpful in specifying school geography?
- Do we know how understanding in relation to these concepts develops?
- What form of research project may help shed light on pupils’ conceptual development through the school years?

Conclusion

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

This free course provided an introduction to studying Education, Childhood & Youth. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance, and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

Keep on learning

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

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References

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

DEA/GA (2004) The Global Dimension: Geography, London, Development Education Association.

Goudie, A. (1993) ‘Schools and Universities – the great divide’, Geography 78(4), pp. 338–9.

Gritzner, C. (2004) ‘The Geographic “Mental Map”: Can “anyone” (really) teach geography?’, Journal of Geography 103, pp. 43–5.

Hollowat, S., Rice, S. and Valentine, G. (2003), Key concepts in Geography, Sage Publications Ltd.

Marsden, B. (1997) ‘Taking the geography out of geography education’, Geography 82(3), pp. 241–52.

Standish, A. (2003) ‘Constructing a value map’, Geography 88(2), pp. 149–51.

Standish, A. (2004) ‘Valuing (Adult) Geographic Knowledge’, Geography 89(1), pp. 89–91.

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Professor David Lambert is Chief Executive of the Geographical but remains Research Associate of the Institute of Education (London). He is a former secondary geography teacher (for 12 years) and developed a scholarly interest in assessment issues following the introduction of the national curriculum. He also has a research interest in the way teachers select and use textbooks with pupils. He has a long-standing concern with moral and cultural aspects of geography education and is currently interested in clarifying the nature and the role of disciplinary knowledge in learning to teach effectively.

The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence.

Course image: Neva Swensen in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course:

Marsden, B. ‘On taking the Geography out of Geographical Education – Some Historical Pointers on Geography’, Geography, Vol. 82, Part 3, July 1997. The Geographical Association;

Goudie, A. ‘Schools and Universities – the Great Divide’, Geography, Vol. 78, Part 4, October 1993. The Geographical Association;

Standish, A. ‘Constructing a Value Map’, Geography, Vol. 88, No. 2, 2003, the Geographical Association. Originally published on Spiked, www.spiked-online.com;

Bonnett, A. ‘Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and academic geographical imaginations’, Area, Vol. 35, No.1, 2003. The Royal Geographic Society (with The Institute of British Geographers). Blackwell Publishing.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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