The way the Guardian reported the story was that geography was being held
back by a the tendency for teachers to teach the curriculum with a staid
'fact' filled approach as opposed to dealing with the 'big issues' such as
globalisation and sustainability. In the schools I visit as a geographer
working in Initial Teacher Training, these 'issues' are very much in
evidence - indeed, pupils are exhorted to learn how rainforests are being
destroyed, how global warming is leading to increased flooding and so on.

The problem, from a 'critical' geographical perspective, is how quickly
complex issues get simplified and/or reduced so as to deny deeper
understanding of the causes and effects of these issues, with the result
that pupils are asked to express their ideas or views with little
knowledge. I am reminded of Roger Lee's (1983) excellent article called
'Teaching Geography:The dialectics of structure and agency'(Journal of
Geography) in which he argues that: "it is important that the curriculum is
rewritten from the bottom up, rather than the top down; from the blackboard
jungle, rather than from the ivory tower. The diverse lives of children in
the classroom must provide the raw material.."

It's interesting to reflect on why Roger Lee's challenge hasn't been taken
up. From my perspective working with student teachers I can comment on
three areas:

(1) the student teachers who come on to my PGCE geography course generally
have geography degrees. They often profess to be specialists in one aspect
of geography which they usually identify as 'physical' or 'human' geography
(some specify aspects such as 'climatologist' or 'social' geographers). In
my experience, at this stage few students have real confidence in their
ability to teach the subject as a whole, so tend to fall back on simplified
'textbook' versions of the topics they know less about. As an aside,
despite some students coming onto the course well-versed in cultural
geography and ideas about the social construction of categories such as
'nature', they very quickly see knowledge as something to be 'banked,
transmitted or 'delivered'..

(2) This tendency to see knowledge as something to be delivered is quickly
reinforced in schools where strongly positivist approaches remain in place.
Student teachers see very little 'critical' geography being taught in
schools, and those who identify themselves as 'critical' find themselves up
against tradition and conservatism - critical teaching is 'risky'...

(3) Teacher training courses are increasingly school based (on a  PGCE 24
out of the 26 weeks training must take place in schools). This means that
university tutors have little time or space to help student teachers
translate their subject knowledge into classroom terms. What's more,
courses are required to focus very much on 'what works' (i.e. rather
technical classroom techniques) rather than explore the complex
relationship between theory and practice. The increased attention to issues
of pedagogy in geography in higher education is welcome, but we have a long
way to go if we to develop the type of geographical education outlined in
Roger Lee's article.

John Morgan

--On 26 November 2004 15:22 +0000 Ian Mack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Yes - David Lambert's response can be downloaded from here:
> http://www.geography.org.uk/news_events/index.asp
>
> Ian
>
>

>
>




----------------------
JW Morgan, Graduate School Education
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