Area carried a commentary by Kevin Stannard (a Geography teacher at Eton, I know hardly representative) that talked of the need to connect university and school geography. See Standard, K Earth to academia: on the need to reconnect university and school geography', Volume 3, No. 3 September 2003, 315-322. It was in response to an observation by Alastair Bonnett (the incoming editor of Area) who provides a response.
On the matter of what have we been doing. On at least two occaisions Leciester Geography Department has tried to put on events for local school teachers to attend to help bridge the gap.On each occaision we had to cancel them due to a lack of interest. They were in the Easter Vacation and we were told that teachers were not prepared to give up holidays to attend such events. This may or may not be true, we are now trying to establish a network with local teachers to find out if there are ways we can help. We did run a 'Free GIS on the Web' event that attracted a few teachers. Clearly we need to do something as we are already facing recuitment problems that threaten Departments. As someone involved in writing an Intro Human Geography text at University level, I have looked at current A-level texts and there does seem to be a big difference. That wouldn't be bad if A-level Geography was exciting, but others contributing to the list suggest that it is not. In the current RAE environment, no credit is given for textbook writing at University level, so there would be no incentive to get involved in writing for schools. This retuns to Roger Lee's observation about who are audience is, clearly each other!
Mike Bradshaw
Out-going editor of Area
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