Geography Teaching Today

The Geography of Personal Experience

'The challenge facing us as geography teachers is to adopt a pedagogy that promotes critical thinking and raises awareness of the ways in which individuals and groups of people can engage in appropriate action to promote a sustainable future.'

Morgan, A. (2006) 'Teaching geography for a sustainable future' in Balderstone, D. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook, Sheffield: Geographical Association.

Government policies and professional ideas about teaching and learning have to be applied successfully at the level of a scheme of work or sequence of lessons to be seen to be effective in the short or longer term. Making use of learning materials and ideas provides the measure of change in the significant contribution made to learners' experiences.

This section asks you to look closer to home than the familiar learning contexts in textbooks and elsewhere. It embraces critical thinking about learners and their own communities. It puts more emphasis on the personal experiences than analysis of classic models or locality studies could possibly allow. Part of this appreciation of oneself and one's own places is the geographical interpretation of connections with other people and their places.

'Personal experiences of geography: This involves using pupils' practical and life experiences to extend and deepen their awareness and understanding of a range of geographical ideas, such as the significance of location, the nature of environments and sustainable development.'

Source: http://www.qca.org.uk/

Now do Activity 4


Taking it further Part 2

Skills for Sustainable Communities

This section considers the Government's policy context on adult skills for sustainable communities before exploring the extent to which education for the 11-16 age-group might contribute towards it. However, the extent to which education at school is perceived primarily as a preparation for the workplace, by parents, employers and the learners themselves, is a much wider debate than possible here. In so far as geography contributes to understanding of the changing world of work, as well as how people live and play, it should recognise these issues concerning skills.

The Urban Task Force (1999) had argued that: 'The teaching in basic professional skills is excellent. The main problem is a lack of cross-disciplinary learning with a strong vocational element. The evidence is that it is generic rather than technical skills that are in short supply.'

The Egan Review (2004) concurred with this and suggested that, in addition to their technical competences, professional and practitioners dealing with the development of sustainable communities would indeed benefit from a number of what were called 'generic skills'. It is also argued that the delivery of sustainable communities could only be achieved if professionals and practitioners developed new ways of thinking and acting.

Source: ASC (2007) In a nutshell, Leeds: Academy for Sustainable Communities.


The Egan Review: skills for sustainable communities - definitions of generic skills. Read the Definitions of Generic Skills on the ASC (now HCA) website.

The Egan Review made the distinction between skills used in:

• Core occupations
• Associated occupations
• Community engagement
  
  

Select a likely learning context as an example, such as an enquiry into a current change taking place, or proposed, in the community.

Identify how to use this three-fold distinction appropriately in your scheme of work.

How does this contribute towards a whole-picture of people involved in place-making?


Comment

Learners should not be excluded from community engagement and, therefore, already have or need the skills used in this role.

Read more on the key stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities in 'Who's who'.

Now do Activity 6


Taking it further Summary

We have looked at skills for sustainable communities and a futures approach to learning. Having considered these through the learners' geographical experience you might like to now re-consider the locations and concepts in text books, and other resources, in terms of how they serve and supplement this personalised teaching and learning - and not the other way around.

It has been suggested that we are responsible for striking a positive tone in our teaching and learning about communities. We can make better places. However, David Hicks does quote a caveat about visioning:

'We should say immediately for the sake of sceptics that we do not believe it is possible for the world to envision its way to a sustainable future. Vision without action is useless. But action without vision does not know where to go or why to go there. Vision is absolutely necessary to guide and motivate action. More than that, vision, when widely shared and firmly kept in sight, brings into being new systems.'
(Meadows et al, 1992)


References

ASC (2007) In a nutshell, Leeds: Academy for Sustainable Communities.

Hicks, D. W. (2006) Lessons for the Future: the missing dimension in education, Oxford: Trafford Publishing. Further details on the Trafford website.

Meadows, D., Meadows, D. and Randers, J. (1992) Beyond the Limits: Global Collapse or a Sustainable Future, London: Earthscan.

Morgan, Alun (2006) 'Teaching geography for a sustainable future' in Balderstone, D. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook, Sheffield: Geographical Association.

Popper, K. (2002) The Lesson of this Century, London: Routledge.

Taylor, L. (2005) Re-presenting Geography, Cambridge: Chris Kington Publishing.

Wellsted, E. (2006) 'Understanding "distant" places' in Balderstone, D. (ed) Secondary Geography Handbook, Sheffield: Geographical Association.

Nick Hopwood's (Oxford University) Think Piece focuses on learners' perspectives and includes a revealing document 'Illustrating Pupils' views on ESD in geography'.

'ASC about... place making' contains six copies of a pop-out and make pyramid and a CD-ROM photo-set. The pyramids serve a dual-purpose as an activity on settlement hierarchy and as an introduction to the eight components of sustainable communities. The 80 indexed photographs are easily accessible for inclusion in digital presentations. To request a copy, without charge, contact the HCA.

Cowan, R. (2001) Placecheck: a users' guide, London: Urban Design Alliance. The full Placecheck list of questions (Parts A, B and C) is available here.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) is the government's advisor on architecture, urban design and public space. It presents links to a range of tools for evaluating the urban environment on this section of its website. One is a 132-page handbook called How to make your neighbourhood a better place to live by Encams, the environmental charity.

Now go to In conclusion