Earlier this week, I got a copy of Alex Standish's draft for a Geography curriculum to replace the existing pre-coalition one. Standish, who currently teaches at an American university has drawn on a range of sources for his plans, which can be read in a download from the GA's CONSULTATION PAGE.
As the GA's Secondary Curriculum Development Leader until a few week's ago, I obviously have an interest in the shape of the future geography curriculum that will shape the classroom experience of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of pupils for years to come.
The GA's curriculum draft has some significant differences to what Standish proposes (click the link to download PDF)
I was also one of several people involved in putting together the details of a presentation which was developed into a series of maps by ESRI UK. Note that these are presented as potential spaces for exploration rather than 'capes and bays'.
A few personal observations.
There isn't the same depth of analysis of the different 'types' of knowledge that students need in order to achieve.
From the GA's document - the three suggested types of knowledge are clear:
"Core knowledge" [Kn1]: This refers to the subject as it resides in the popular imagination: if geography is the 'world subject' its core knowledge is gleaned and created from the information communicated in globes and atlases. Much of this amounts to geographical context, and in this sense can be distinguished from the main content of the curriculum. It is not low level or trivial material but it can become so if taught badly, e.g. as an end in itself. The GA, in its 2009 manifesto, likens learning geography to learning a 'language'. Using this metaphor, the idea of 'vocabulary' captures the role of 'core knowledge'. It may be thought of as extensive world knowledge, in itself fairly superficial yet enabling.
"Content knowledge" [Kn2]: Sometimes referred to as concepts or generalisations, and
the key to developing understanding. This may be seen as the main content of the geography curriculum. Key concepts and generalisations in geography show how geography contributes to pupils' acquisition and development of 'powerful knowledge'
. Using the GA's language metaphor, the concepts of geography are like its 'grammar'. It may also be thought of as more intensive world knowledge, taking in the realm of processes, different perspectives and of values.
"Procedural knowledge" [Kn3]: Thinking geographically is a distinctive procedure – it is
not the same as thinking historically or scientifically or mathematically (etc.). The teacher can model this by example, but it is also learned through exposure to, and direct experience of, high quality geographical enquiry which might include decision making or problem solving scenarios. There are two characteristics of geographical approaches, or a geographic orientation, to making sense of the world that are particularly striking to note:
(a) The recognition of the significance of place and unique context.
(b) The adoption of a relational (or sometimes, 'holistic') approach to enquiries (e.g. taking account of both physical and human factors; or the links between local phenomena and wider global processes).
Learning geography requires pupils to engage mentally with questions about people, society, environment and the planet. This means they identify, assimilate, analyse and communicate data of various kinds, and learn the skills to do so productively. This will often entail using information technology – manipulating maps, diagrams, graphs and images (sometimes referred to collectively as 'graphicacy') – structured talk and debate and writing for a variety of audiences.
The GA, through David Lambert, GA staff, the various Working Groups, Special Interest Groups and Committees, including Education Committee has been preparing for the next curriculum update for YEARS, and has thought deeply about what could and should be included. Colleagues were involved with producing the Importance Statement for the previous curriculum, from which everything else was developed.
The return of regional geography is a bit of a curve ball that many people would not have expected, and which is at odds with academic geography in the UK. I taught regional geography in 1988 when I first started teaching....
The recent RGS-IBG Conference showed the huge variety of geographies that are being explored in academic geography, some of which permeate down to, or are informed by, what is going on in secondary schools. These are missing from the Standish document.
Some people may appreciate the inclusion of glaciation, but it is presented just as more 'stuff' to learn, rather than with any sense of awe and wonder and beauty. The degree of prescription if not obvious, unless I missed it on first reading. Which bits do you have to know ? Which bits will be on the inevitable 'test' ?
Check out the GA's useful set of CORE KNOWLEDGE MAPS which we developed in association with ESRI UK. These offer a surface over which stories can be created by the teacher. Standish instead creates tablets that are already engraved with 'things to know', such as Cultural pattern, practices and beliefs, e.g. tribal cultures, Persian culture, Arabic culture, Turkish culture, Islam.
which would not be high on the average 13 year old's wishlist of "things I'll need to know about in five years time...."
The GA has created the idea of 'curriculum making'... This involves the teacher and students working to create a series of meaningful responses which connect into a coherent whole, and are enjoyable above all.
Standish creates divisions immediately by talking about human and physical geography: by having a look at How does the weather affect people in different places? - but not the other way round....
Here are a few random points of note:
- use a barometer (oooh, I'll just dig mine out from the cupboard, now, where is it ? it was here somewhere...)
- it includes content for KS4: by that stage no-one who has been exposed to this document will want to have anything further to do with geography...
- are we going to keep going back to the compass and saying - "oh yes, remember those directions we did 2 years ago ? well there are some others in between them.... who knew ?
- where is the geographical enquiry ? how will procedural knowledge be developed ?
- ox-bow lakes - is this irony ?
There is little of the excitement of the Young People's Geographies project, or the Making Geography Happen project, or our work John Lyon and Sue Bermingham are currently doing with Paul Hamlyn, or the exciting use of technology that we see in any copy of TES or spread across the forums and NINGs and Twitter.
To sum up then, this document is out of step with the last five years of progress made by all those involved in the Action Plan for Geography, and the work done in thousands of schools by colleagues known and unknown. It is static and backwards looking. It stifles teacher creativity. It is indiscriminate, with no sense of breadth or depth. There is no sense of the exploration, fun, creativity, co-construction, discovery and playfulness of my recent work with the Geography Collective. There is no room to BREATHE and STRETCH...
Ironically, Standish says in his preamble:
So we have the confusion of pedagogical and curriculum freedoms.
Teachers (in negotiation with students) need to be able to make decisions on both.
It is also released at a time, when there are now endless schools that have exemptions to the curriculum and don't have to deliver it. (This is certainly one that would be 'delivered' rather than co-created or enjoyed)
Perhaps it's a subtle ploy to get more schools to become academies ?
Please have your say on the GA CONSULTATION.
Charles Rawding of Edge Hill University has added a comment to the GA page:
Dr Standish's proposals are frighteningly out of date - regional geography became discredited during the 1960s and 70s - to take such an approach today would be a seriously retrograde step. It would also result in a chasm opening between what was taught in schools and what students would then encounter when undertaking a Geography degree.
Wordle of Standish document - click for larger...
Related documents for further background reading
Transcript of BBC Today programme with Alex Standish and David Lambert (2002)
Review of Standish's book in Times Higher Ed Supplement
Spiked article (2004) that brought Alex Standish's name to many people's attention
Independent article on geography curriculum (2003)
Check the Twitter hashtags #NewGeog and #geographyriot for further tweets and comment
Update
The sources that Standish credits include:
Butt, G. (2011) (Ed.) Geography, Education and the Future. London: Continuum.
This has a fantastic chapter on Young People's Geographies, and this is an absolutely VITAL element of any modern school geography.
The stories of young people have to come through....
They are MISSING from the Standish curriculum
And if you've read this far, please scroll down to the next post and watch Dan Ellison in Oregon outlining some ideas that SHOULD be in the curriculum...
Also, had over 550 page views of my original post on the Standish curriculum - I hope that meant that most of those visitors then had their say on the GA page...
Update Mon 19/09
Check out the lengthy debate on the SLN GEOGRAPHY FORUM - also now over 20 responses on the GA website...
Update Mon 03/10
Comment by Alex Standish added to GA website consultation page:
Wow! This is what it has come to: GA members arguing against the teaching of geography. Clearly, some members think that teaching about the surface of the world (climate, landscape, ecosystems, population, settlements, economies, political territories, culture etc.), the object of geographical enquiry, is not interesting or relevant for children today. Instead, we need to ‘engage’ them through sexy ‘issues’ and topics to which they can ‘relate’. One wonders why people call themselves geographers if they find geographical phenomena “boring”. Many geographers that I know find the surface of the world intriguing, complex, a puzzle. It is a challenge to unravel the different layers and explore the different processes that together have shaped our landscapes/cityscapes and those in different countries across the globe. Teaching geography means instilling in children the same kind of hunger to learn and inquisitiveness about the world. To satisfy this curiosity, pupils need to learn knowledge about the different physical and human geographical layers, such that one can begin to understand the different geographical processes at work. Or at least, this is what geography teaching should mean.
Those who want children to be critically engaged with contemporary issues facing humanity in different localities need to ask themselves, “What makes someone an independent critical thinker?” The answer is knowledge. Yes, learning about ‘issues’ is a part of geography, but in order to be able to engage with such issues in any meaningful way, you first need to learn some geography (and probably other subjects like history and science as well). This shortcoming was highlighted in this year’s OFSTED report Geography: Learning to Make a World of Difference:
Although pupils were often encouraged well to consider complex global issues such as migration and inequalities of wealth, their understanding was frequently unsatisfactory. This was because the learning was not set sufficiently within the context of real and recognizable places, so their understanding did not develop beyond an awareness that such issues existed.
It is knowledge, not issues, that develops human agency because knowledge is the path to understanding, from which we can interpret how to act.
“But education has changed. Academic geography has changed. Standish’s curriculum is so dated,” retort certain members. Indeed, education in the UK has changed enormously. But why do people assume that this change is positive? Many academics/universities no longer see their role as the expansion and dissemination of knowledge. Look around you at the sorry state of Western society (including state education). And, given that we know that the curriculum reflects social change, why would we not be sceptical of the direction education has taken. Come on folks. Where are your critical faculties? Get some historical perspective on the subject and then maybe it will be evident why geography, as a subject discipline, is fast disappearing in the UK. Don’t take my word for it. Read William Marsden, Richard Hartshorne, Phil Gersmehl and others who have a clearer sense of what geography is about. This is not to be blind to the historical conditions which contextualize a subject, but the process of geographical enquiry and the object of study remain the same.
Finally, my curriculum is just one contribution to the discussion of the geography children need to learn. The process of writing a national curriculum should involve a community of geographers collectively answering the question of what knowledge to study at which level. The GA’s submission is a part of this, but it does not go nearly far enough in specifying the essential geographical knowledge children need to learn. It is the responsibility of subject leaders and teachers to provide the answer to this question.
As the GA's Secondary Curriculum Development Leader until a few week's ago, I obviously have an interest in the shape of the future geography curriculum that will shape the classroom experience of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of pupils for years to come.
The GA's curriculum draft has some significant differences to what Standish proposes (click the link to download PDF)
I was also one of several people involved in putting together the details of a presentation which was developed into a series of maps by ESRI UK. Note that these are presented as potential spaces for exploration rather than 'capes and bays'.
A few personal observations.
There isn't the same depth of analysis of the different 'types' of knowledge that students need in order to achieve.
From the GA's document - the three suggested types of knowledge are clear:
"Core knowledge" [Kn1]: This refers to the subject as it resides in the popular imagination: if geography is the 'world subject' its core knowledge is gleaned and created from the information communicated in globes and atlases. Much of this amounts to geographical context, and in this sense can be distinguished from the main content of the curriculum. It is not low level or trivial material but it can become so if taught badly, e.g. as an end in itself. The GA, in its 2009 manifesto, likens learning geography to learning a 'language'. Using this metaphor, the idea of 'vocabulary' captures the role of 'core knowledge'. It may be thought of as extensive world knowledge, in itself fairly superficial yet enabling.
"Content knowledge" [Kn2]: Sometimes referred to as concepts or generalisations, and
the key to developing understanding. This may be seen as the main content of the geography curriculum. Key concepts and generalisations in geography show how geography contributes to pupils' acquisition and development of 'powerful knowledge'
. Using the GA's language metaphor, the concepts of geography are like its 'grammar'. It may also be thought of as more intensive world knowledge, taking in the realm of processes, different perspectives and of values.
"Procedural knowledge" [Kn3]: Thinking geographically is a distinctive procedure – it is
not the same as thinking historically or scientifically or mathematically (etc.). The teacher can model this by example, but it is also learned through exposure to, and direct experience of, high quality geographical enquiry which might include decision making or problem solving scenarios. There are two characteristics of geographical approaches, or a geographic orientation, to making sense of the world that are particularly striking to note:
(a) The recognition of the significance of place and unique context.
(b) The adoption of a relational (or sometimes, 'holistic') approach to enquiries (e.g. taking account of both physical and human factors; or the links between local phenomena and wider global processes).
Learning geography requires pupils to engage mentally with questions about people, society, environment and the planet. This means they identify, assimilate, analyse and communicate data of various kinds, and learn the skills to do so productively. This will often entail using information technology – manipulating maps, diagrams, graphs and images (sometimes referred to collectively as 'graphicacy') – structured talk and debate and writing for a variety of audiences.
The GA, through David Lambert, GA staff, the various Working Groups, Special Interest Groups and Committees, including Education Committee has been preparing for the next curriculum update for YEARS, and has thought deeply about what could and should be included. Colleagues were involved with producing the Importance Statement for the previous curriculum, from which everything else was developed.
The return of regional geography is a bit of a curve ball that many people would not have expected, and which is at odds with academic geography in the UK. I taught regional geography in 1988 when I first started teaching....
The recent RGS-IBG Conference showed the huge variety of geographies that are being explored in academic geography, some of which permeate down to, or are informed by, what is going on in secondary schools. These are missing from the Standish document.
Some people may appreciate the inclusion of glaciation, but it is presented just as more 'stuff' to learn, rather than with any sense of awe and wonder and beauty. The degree of prescription if not obvious, unless I missed it on first reading. Which bits do you have to know ? Which bits will be on the inevitable 'test' ?
Check out the GA's useful set of CORE KNOWLEDGE MAPS which we developed in association with ESRI UK. These offer a surface over which stories can be created by the teacher. Standish instead creates tablets that are already engraved with 'things to know', such as Cultural pattern, practices and beliefs, e.g. tribal cultures, Persian culture, Arabic culture, Turkish culture, Islam.
which would not be high on the average 13 year old's wishlist of "things I'll need to know about in five years time...."
The GA has created the idea of 'curriculum making'... This involves the teacher and students working to create a series of meaningful responses which connect into a coherent whole, and are enjoyable above all.
Standish creates divisions immediately by talking about human and physical geography: by having a look at How does the weather affect people in different places? - but not the other way round....
Here are a few random points of note:
- use a barometer (oooh, I'll just dig mine out from the cupboard, now, where is it ? it was here somewhere...)
- it includes content for KS4: by that stage no-one who has been exposed to this document will want to have anything further to do with geography...
- are we going to keep going back to the compass and saying - "oh yes, remember those directions we did 2 years ago ? well there are some others in between them.... who knew ?
- where is the geographical enquiry ? how will procedural knowledge be developed ?
- ox-bow lakes - is this irony ?
There is little of the excitement of the Young People's Geographies project, or the Making Geography Happen project, or our work John Lyon and Sue Bermingham are currently doing with Paul Hamlyn, or the exciting use of technology that we see in any copy of TES or spread across the forums and NINGs and Twitter.
To sum up then, this document is out of step with the last five years of progress made by all those involved in the Action Plan for Geography, and the work done in thousands of schools by colleagues known and unknown. It is static and backwards looking. It stifles teacher creativity. It is indiscriminate, with no sense of breadth or depth. There is no sense of the exploration, fun, creativity, co-construction, discovery and playfulness of my recent work with the Geography Collective. There is no room to BREATHE and STRETCH...
Ironically, Standish says in his preamble:
"In writing this curriculum, my objective has been to make a contribution to the conversation about what knowledge and skills children need to learn in geography. How this is taught in the classroom is the prerogative of teachers, as it always should be."
Teachers (in negotiation with students) need to be able to make decisions on both.
It is also released at a time, when there are now endless schools that have exemptions to the curriculum and don't have to deliver it. (This is certainly one that would be 'delivered' rather than co-created or enjoyed)
Perhaps it's a subtle ploy to get more schools to become academies ?
Please have your say on the GA CONSULTATION.
Charles Rawding of Edge Hill University has added a comment to the GA page:
Dr Standish's proposals are frighteningly out of date - regional geography became discredited during the 1960s and 70s - to take such an approach today would be a seriously retrograde step. It would also result in a chasm opening between what was taught in schools and what students would then encounter when undertaking a Geography degree.
Wordle of Standish document - click for larger...
Related documents for further background reading
Transcript of BBC Today programme with Alex Standish and David Lambert (2002)
Review of Standish's book in Times Higher Ed Supplement
Spiked article (2004) that brought Alex Standish's name to many people's attention
Independent article on geography curriculum (2003)
Check the Twitter hashtags #NewGeog and #geographyriot for further tweets and comment
Update
The sources that Standish credits include:
Butt, G. (2011) (Ed.) Geography, Education and the Future. London: Continuum.
This has a fantastic chapter on Young People's Geographies, and this is an absolutely VITAL element of any modern school geography.
The stories of young people have to come through....
They are MISSING from the Standish curriculum
And if you've read this far, please scroll down to the next post and watch Dan Ellison in Oregon outlining some ideas that SHOULD be in the curriculum...
Also, had over 550 page views of my original post on the Standish curriculum - I hope that meant that most of those visitors then had their say on the GA page...
Update Mon 19/09
Check out the lengthy debate on the SLN GEOGRAPHY FORUM - also now over 20 responses on the GA website...
Update Mon 03/10
Comment by Alex Standish added to GA website consultation page:
Wow! This is what it has come to: GA members arguing against the teaching of geography. Clearly, some members think that teaching about the surface of the world (climate, landscape, ecosystems, population, settlements, economies, political territories, culture etc.), the object of geographical enquiry, is not interesting or relevant for children today. Instead, we need to ‘engage’ them through sexy ‘issues’ and topics to which they can ‘relate’. One wonders why people call themselves geographers if they find geographical phenomena “boring”. Many geographers that I know find the surface of the world intriguing, complex, a puzzle. It is a challenge to unravel the different layers and explore the different processes that together have shaped our landscapes/cityscapes and those in different countries across the globe. Teaching geography means instilling in children the same kind of hunger to learn and inquisitiveness about the world. To satisfy this curiosity, pupils need to learn knowledge about the different physical and human geographical layers, such that one can begin to understand the different geographical processes at work. Or at least, this is what geography teaching should mean.
Those who want children to be critically engaged with contemporary issues facing humanity in different localities need to ask themselves, “What makes someone an independent critical thinker?” The answer is knowledge. Yes, learning about ‘issues’ is a part of geography, but in order to be able to engage with such issues in any meaningful way, you first need to learn some geography (and probably other subjects like history and science as well). This shortcoming was highlighted in this year’s OFSTED report Geography: Learning to Make a World of Difference:
Although pupils were often encouraged well to consider complex global issues such as migration and inequalities of wealth, their understanding was frequently unsatisfactory. This was because the learning was not set sufficiently within the context of real and recognizable places, so their understanding did not develop beyond an awareness that such issues existed.
It is knowledge, not issues, that develops human agency because knowledge is the path to understanding, from which we can interpret how to act.
“But education has changed. Academic geography has changed. Standish’s curriculum is so dated,” retort certain members. Indeed, education in the UK has changed enormously. But why do people assume that this change is positive? Many academics/universities no longer see their role as the expansion and dissemination of knowledge. Look around you at the sorry state of Western society (including state education). And, given that we know that the curriculum reflects social change, why would we not be sceptical of the direction education has taken. Come on folks. Where are your critical faculties? Get some historical perspective on the subject and then maybe it will be evident why geography, as a subject discipline, is fast disappearing in the UK. Don’t take my word for it. Read William Marsden, Richard Hartshorne, Phil Gersmehl and others who have a clearer sense of what geography is about. This is not to be blind to the historical conditions which contextualize a subject, but the process of geographical enquiry and the object of study remain the same.
Finally, my curriculum is just one contribution to the discussion of the geography children need to learn. The process of writing a national curriculum should involve a community of geographers collectively answering the question of what knowledge to study at which level. The GA’s submission is a part of this, but it does not go nearly far enough in specifying the essential geographical knowledge children need to learn. It is the responsibility of subject leaders and teachers to provide the answer to this question.
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