While I agree with much of what Hilary, Jo and others have said about this proposal, it seems to me that they could also mark an opportunity to improve the teaching of both history and geography.
As an Admissions Officer at my Uni who is not a product of the UK school system (I'm Canadian) I took some time afew years back to study both the GCSE and A-level syllabuses quite carefully -- I wanted to know where my students were coming from. Anyway, I was rather disappointed with the type and standard of existing syllabuses; they were overly-simplistic, formulaic and often focused on less than exciting aspects of our discipline.
So I guess I wonder if the current proposals can help us teach both history and geography (considered in the 17th and 18th centuries as twin pillars of knowledge!). What might such a double GCSE syllabus look like?
Chad Staddon
University of the West of England
Coldharbour Lane, Bristol
ENGLAND BS16 1QY
TEL: (0117) 344-3214
----- Original Message -----
From: Canning J.
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: Joint GCSE history and geography exam planned
Jo wrote:
"Geography as a subject taught in state schools needs to be taught in a manner that contains critical and thought provoking knowledge, understanding and skills that links to other disciplines rather than losing its identity by being merged into other subjects to support the neoliberalisation of british state school education. There is also an immediate need for tertiary educators of geography encouraging students to consider teaching geography as a post degree career option and geographical researchers forging links with geographical education to ensure the subject survives - otherwise there will be courses run at degree level that students will not be taking up because awareness of the subject will change and geography will mutate into other social science faculties / courses and we will be the 51st state and children and young adults will not know where Iraq is ........ (i just hope we're not quite at that stage yet)"
When I posted this item I was unsure about what I really thought about this. However, it is an important question for those of us in Higher Education as a potential student's experience of the subject at school is very important in their decesion of what to study at university.
Its also interesting to note that geography is seen as a humanities subject as opposed to (or as well as a science).
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Jo Norcup [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 02 December 2003 10:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Joint GCSE history and geography exam planned
I have huge reservations about such a suggestion.
As a practising geography teacher, I have seen over recent years the subtle yet very real erosion of geography from the school curriculum. Primary schools have little if any geography at Key Stage 2 (it is no longer compulsory to teach it as a choice between either geography or history and many teachers opt for history over geography as geography is perceived by many teachers to be 'too hard' i quote from a primary school ex-colleague).
Many Secondary schools (i mean state schools in this context) particularly schools wanting to improve their league results or schools with a particular 'specialist college' status often overlook Geography, encouraging students to take subjects that will bring in 'certain' results that will improve the league table results - geography is often perceived by non-geographical SMT as unreliable because the subject depends on students applying a mixture of literary/numerical/ict/thinking skills which the timetable at school may not allow time for given the controls over compulsory subjects being taught - this is particularly true in specialist subject colleges (Geography specialism is being introduced this academic year and - it could be argued - was overlooked in favour of other subjects that have more of a commercial / capital benefit (see Paulo Freire theory of state education as a means to suppress and control the workforce).The Geographical Association produces promotional materials for schools to educate non-geographer SMT about the benefits of geography to the school curriculum (links with other subjects and citizenship).
I had a number of students aged 11 -12 last year seriously asking me why my world map was round (with reference to the globe in my classroom), and this was in generic lessons that my school had introduced to support students through a new curriculum scheme that seemed to have very strong links to private business agendas (PFI / neoliberal agreements the UK signed up to last year and was only reported in the Morning Star). In my particular case, Geography was scrapped as a single taught subject in years 7 - 9 / at Key stage 3, (which poses the question - how many students will actually know what geography IS by the time they choose their gcses?). GCSE numbers over the country are dropping and while i appreciate the arguments of giving historical context to geographical education, any practising geography teacher worth their salt is already doing this. However, with approx 70% of geography teachers in British secondary schools (again state schools not private schools) being non-specialist this is a real worry in terms of the quality and types of geographical education that is being delivered.
Geography as a subject taught in state schools needs to be taught in a manner that contains critical and thought provoking knowledge, understanding and skills that links to other disciplines rather than losing its identity by being merged into other subjects to support the neoliberalisation of british state school education. There is also an immediate need for tertiary educators of geography encouraging students to consider teaching geography as a post degree career option and geographical researchers forging links with geographical education to ensure the subject survives - otherwise there will be courses run at degree level that students will not be taking up because awareness of the subject will change and geography will mutate into other social science faculties / courses and we will be the 51st state and children and young adults will not know where Iraq is ........ (i just hope we're not quite at that stage yet)
Jo
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