Geography in Primary School - Essay Example

GEOGRAPHY IN PRIMARY SCHOOL Geography is taught as a general in primary school. Its placement in the National Curriculum has been well fought by academics who wanted the subject included. But the placement alone is not enough to guarantee an effective, engaging and productive outcome for it as a foundation subject-area for primary school students. What the schools have today is merely a geography subject that is adopted and taught because it was mandated by the curriculum, it was just there. For a good number of educators and schools, it is merely a basic subject that is both boring and insignificant. But to those educators who specialize and love the field, such circumstance is unfortunate because much can be improved in order for the subject to be interesting, significant, effective and productive for primary school learners. This paper will explore this theme, particularly the problems about the framework by which geography is taught and the issues entailed in its improvement. Background In order to identify the current issues facing geography as a subject in primary school, it is important to investigate the educational landscape. In the early 1980s, geography was included in the list of subjects mandated by the National Curriculum, an initiative by the government to regulate and specify school curriculum. This was in opposition to the previous educational policy of the 1970s, which favored a free-for-all curriculum. By the time of the Education Reform Act of 1988, geography’s place had been assured and that this part is in large measure to the highly successful lobbying of the Geographical Association. (White 2004, p77) The importance of geography as a subject has been sufficiently explained. As part of educating the young, it is an important tool to learn about history, the environment and the international development. According to Chang, loosely, geography equips students with the knowledge, skills and values as useful and contributing citizens of the world. (p142) Specifically, “geography in schools will train future citizens to imagine accurately the condition of the great world stage and so to help them to think sanely about political and social problems of the world around” in addition to its basic role in understanding history, the environment, the society and their relationships. (p142) During the 1990s, however, the geography subject was increasingly demoted as a minor and insignificant subject area. It was relegated to schedules in the afternoon and the lessons involved poor content and activities. Many experts believed that the series of modifications to the National Curriculum is the primary reason to blame in the deterioration of the subject. For example, when the National Curriculum Order was passed in the House of Commons in 1991, the government was quick to declare that the subject would emphasize content, which, for many, was tantamount to giving textbook writers the power to dictate curriculum because their content contained the resource that the policy required to be taught within a national education system that emphasize cultural literacy. According to Rawling (2000), the curriculum failed because it has provided no rationale, and that the key aspects and ideas of the subject were lost in the mass of detailed content. (Rawling, p102) The idea was the reduction of autonomy and mandated more conformity from educators. It was a negative development that resulted in a kind of restrictiveness in geography teaching that left no engagement and meaningful role for teachers. White echoed this sentiment when he explained that the drive of teachers to use a loved subject to fulfill educational aims and purposes was replaced with an urgent need to simply make sense of the rules of engagement. (p77) What happened was that teachers were bound to use textbooks and its boring content, leading to the relegation of the subject area into a lightweight field that is only a component of several core subjects. This problem is also aggravated by the fact that many subject teachers are not specialists in the field. A survey undertaken by the Teacher Education Committee of the Geographical Association found that there is a widespread under-recruitment of geography PGCE graduates, highlighting how graduate geographers are not being recruited into teaching in the numbers desirable to maintain the specialist teaching of the subject in schools. (Fisher and Binns, 2000, p31) Currently, the educational policy is concentrated in literacy and numeracy. Minor subjects such as geography are increasingly being marginalized. In 1998, the government announced that six non-core subjects, which included geography, need not be taught anymore in order to emphasize English and Mathematics. Although, this does not directly concern the framework of teaching, which is the primary concern of this paper, the downgrade affects school policies and the educators. When not entirely scrapped out of the subject list, it receives less attention, emphasis and importance. Today, the policy landscape is changing and many geography educators were actually relieved when new modifications to the National Curriculum took effect in 2000. There is a renewed interest in school based curriculum development from the policy perspective and this should bring about a number of opportunities for schools and educators not just in the development of effective curricula but also in using teaching content and methodologies in geography that is both engaging and productive. This is now the most important aspect in the recent curriculum development in the United Kingdom in the context of teaching geography in primary schools. Although the subject is still marginalized, the policy changes are again empowering schools to elevate the status of geography as an important subject area in primary schools or, at least, for geography educators to be more engaged and effective in teaching the subject and perhaps. This ensures the increased role of educators to make changes in teaching geography. If subject leaders cannot do any meaningful action to prevent the demotion of geography’s status, it can, at least, actively ensure that the subject is effective, interesting and significant for the learners. Role of Subject Leader in Improvement In consideration of the previously outlined variables, the work for subject leaders is quite daunting. First, and most importantly, there is the need to address the consequences of the previous educational policies. Subject leaders have to contend with these issues, which according to White, include: The perception that control over what is taught should come from outside the specialist teaching community; The presumption that school geography needs to cover in approximate balance the full range of what is geography – the human, the physical, the environmental, the regional; The shift from the previous norm that geography should be “content rich” or an empirical account of earth’s features and mimesis; and, The permeation of the so-called ‘answer culture’ as opposed to the ideal ‘enquiry learning’. (p78) In these areas, the subject leader is required to design change interventions that can drastically reform a set mentality brought about by previous policies. Crucial in these initiatives are the strategies in changing or influencing behavior among geography educators that should be implemented along with efforts at improving teaching and offering training. The subject leader, hence, must be prepared to lead the reform process. A way to approach the challenge is the adoption of a systematic outlook and a multidimensional strategy, planned and executed carefully. Attempts at educational innovations, wrote Anderson (1994), must be sustained and exercised from the initial conception of the change to the point where change is an integral and ongoing fact of school life. (p79) He also added that the reformer must be ready to play his part with particular readiness to deal with the psychological, philosophical, socio-cultural and subject matter perspectives in addition to an ability to navigate through the organizational and political considerations. (p79) There are numerous change intervention models and the subject leader can peruse one or a combination of these to systematically achieve his or her improvement goals. For instance, the culture change model helps organizations and groups to develop cultures (behaviours, values, beliefs and norms) appropriate to their strategies and environments and ensure that group members are pulled in the same direction. (Cummings and Worley, 2008, p161) The appropriate reform model is important because in addition to psychological and behavioral factors, educators encounter several teaching difficulties. According to Burkhardt (1988): the teacher must perceive the implications of the students’ different approaches, whether they may be fruitful and, if not, what might make them so. Pedagogically, the teacher must decide when to intervene, and what suggestions will help students while leaving the solution essentially in their hands, and carry this through for each students… Personally, the teacher will often be in the position… to work well without knowing all the answers. (p18) It is, hence, clear that the subject leader should be able to address diverse issues if he or she aims to achieve meaningful change or improvement in teaching geography today in Britain. The problems are coming from different directions. On one hand, there is the policy variable, while, on the other, there are the teaching difficulties, and, then, there are those factors wedged in between. As previously stated, the challenge is complex and difficult. But once the reform or improvement objectives are attained, the benefits for the learners are significant. One need only go back to the rationale behind teaching geography and understand the benefits and opportunities. A new approach to learning geography can also become more interesting, effective, experienced-based and truly foundational for other core subjects and future learning areas. Scheme There are many initiatives that could collectively constitute a multidimensional reform effort such as training, field studies, among others. One of the most important of these (in the opinion of this researcher) is the so-called scheme or scheme of work. Smith (1997) explained that it is a document that informs teachers on the content of geography and how such content is applied across the whole school, further stating that: It should be written in sufficient depth and detail to allow teachers to know exactly the knowledge, skills and understanding that they must teach within the subject area. Teachers should be able to refer to what has been taught before and what will be taught after their own input. (p48) The “scheme” represents an ideal strategy for reform. Fundamentally, it contains a code that governs not only the content of geography lessons but also the behavior of the teaching personnel. Secondly, the document serves as a record for analysis, evaluation and review. Finally, it satisfies the change intervention requirement for coherence and constancy. So the document can be a primary tool for subject leaders and his improvement initiatives. Conclusion Geography is a unique case, at least when compared to core subjects such as English, mathematics or science. Throughout the recent evolution of the National Curriculum in Britain it has been marginalized, demoted and one of those that suffered most in order to provide more space for core subjects. The way it is being taught, hence, has been severely affected by these developments. This is the reason why the fundamental problem today with geography as an academic subject is not in the area of pedagogy but in having to cope with being an “expendable” subject. During the 1990s, geography was sacrificed in favor of the focus in literacy and numeracy. It received less funding, less specialist-teachers, less emphasis and importance. This was aggravated by the emphasis on content as promoted by the government. So the subject has degenerated to its current level today. Primary school students cannot learn meaningful and useful knowledge, the fundamental raison d’etre why geography have to be taught in schools. Subject leaders must solve this problem first before any pedagogical issues could be addressed. There is a need for reform. And this does not merely involve a change in content or teaching methodology. As stated by this paper, there is a need to change behaviors and culture from among the educators and the school itself. This objective maybe ambitious but it is the only way geography could maintain its relevance on the curriculum. If geography educators would leave the subject to deteriorate further, it will not be surprising if authorities would finally scrap the subject altogether, integrating some elements of it in other subjects. This paper has suggested several change intervention models that should empower subject leaders to make meaningful improvements. References Anderson, R 1994, Issues of Curriculum Reform in Science, Mathematics and Higher Order Thinking Across the Disciplines. DIANE Publishing, Washington, D.C. Burkhardt, H 1988, "Teaching problem solving." In H. Burkhardt, S. Groves, A Schoenfeld, and K. Stacey (eds.), Problem-solving: A world view proceedings of the problem solving theme group, ICME. Shell Centre, Nottingham. Chang, C 2011, "Is Singapore’s School Geography Relevant to Our Changing World?" RIGEO, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 141-157. Cummings, T and Worley, C 2008, Organization development & change. Cengage Learning, New York. Fisher, C and Binns, T 2000, Issues in geography teaching. Routledge, London. Rawling, E 2000, "National Curriculum geography: New opportunities for curriculum development?" In Ashley Kents Reflective practice in geography teaching. SAGE, London. Smith, A 1997, "Failing to plan is tantamount to planning to fail." In P. White and C.D. Poster (eds.), The self-monitoring primary school. Routledge, London. White, J 2004, Rethinking The School Curriculum. RoutledgeFalmer, London. Read More