1. Rediscovering Geography
David Lambert
The Geographical Association

2. The trouble with geography
Marginal position in education policy
‘core’ curriculum, testing, league tables
generic teaching support (the ‘strategies’)
Bad press
teaching quality and student attainment
negative image
Its education potential is not well understood

3. The potential of geography
What, where, why there and why care”
[Gritzner 2002 p38]
Informed citizenship (emphasising some big concepts such as interdependence)
Critical understanding of ‘sustainable development’ (linking the social, the economic and the environmental)

4. The power of geography (1)
The physical world: land, water, air and ecological systems and the processes that bring about change in them. Can involve spiritual dimensions.
The human environments: societies, cities and communities and the human processes involved in understanding work, home, consumption and leisure. Involves political, moral and ethical dimensions.
Interdependence: spatial manifestations of interaction such as trade, migration, climate change: involves, crucially, linking the ‘physical’ and ‘human’ and the emerging concept of ‘sustainable development’

5. The power of geography (2).
Place and space: the ‘vocabulary’ and the ‘syntax’ of the world, developing knowledge and understanding of location and interconnectedness.
Scale: the lens through which the subject matter is ‘seen’. Emphasises the significance of local, regional, national, international and global perspectives.
Pupils’ lives: using pupils’ images, experiences, meanings and questions can introduce an explicit futures orientation into lessons and ‘reach out’ to pupils as active agents in their learning.

6. The use of geography
Geographers are knowledgeable (including about what they do not know!). They also like connected knowledge
They can work together - listening, responding and communicating effectively;
They are literate (can write a report) numerate (can understand statistics) and happy using or processing information (computers).
Geography also develops the ‘fourth ace in the pack’: GRAPHICACY, which lies at the heart of Geographical Information Science (GIS)

7. Key questions about geography
What is geography – ‘thinking geographically’?
How does geography help us make sense of the world?
How does geography help prepare the informed citizen?

8. Key questions for teachers of geography (1)
What is geography for?
How can we make its educational contribution better understood?

9. Key questions for teachers of geography (2)
In what ways can geography be taught ‘carelessly’?
What would characterise school geography that was taught carefully?

10. Teaching geography in a ‘careless’ climate
As if education were an ‘answer culture’ based on the ‘authorised knowledge’
As if there were ‘no right or wrong answers’
“it’s your opinion that matters”
“everybody’s views are of equal worth”
As if the ‘pedagogic adventure’ were all that mattered
As if education were only concerned with developing ‘skills’

11. Teaching geography ‘carefully’
Appreciating the significance of ‘big concepts’, helping us to engage critically with the real world
Medium term planning – with ‘big concepts’
Nurturing a culture of argument - education for conversation (or ‘respectful negotiation’)
Promoting an attitude of “confident uncertainty” towards knowledge development

12. Some big concepts in geography
Interdependence
Place (and space)
Diversity
Scale
Sustainable Development

13. Strength through Association
Re-assert the mission (1)
as a community of practice
Journals, newsletters, website, books and materials, conferences, consultations, lobbying, awards, Worldwise
Drawing from the authority of its membership and primarily serving its members (dissemination)

14. Strength through Association
Re-assert the mission (2)
in a learning society
Independent critical voice, local (funded) projects, certificated professional development opportunities
0riented to knowledge creation and oriented by a strong sense of purpose – that is, school based curriculum development