ED 526 Dis7

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Reading for trainee teachers and NQTs

The value of geography

(Extract from: Day, A. ‘Geography: Challenges for its next century’, Teaching Geography, April 1995)

‘Geography - along with history - has a central role to play in helping to develop articulate, objective

and informed citizens. Schools have never been (could never be!) simply about fitting students for

the world of work. The broad and balanced curriculum means equipping the twenty-first century

citizen to become a fully effective and responsible participant in local, national and global

communities. Participatory democracies have to be worked at, and the preparation comes to a large

extent from the content and approach of subjects like geography.

But the strongest justification for retaining geography and active geographers is the type of world

we and our successors will inhabit in the twenty first century. As demographic and resource

pressures intensify; as environmental and ecological issues become more critical; as conflicts of land-

use multiply; and as the need to manage and plan the increasingly complex web of human and

environmental interactions over the surface of the planet become more urgent, then geographers

should increasingly be at the forefront of analysing what's going on, explaining why, and proposing

alternative strategies with an accountant's precision in detailing the costs and benefits of each

possible scenario. I do not think we need to be pessimistic when we consider the world we inhabit in

the future - much will be positive and of benefit. It would be pessimistic, however, to assume that

geographers will not be fully employed in advising the decision-makers of the likely environmental

impact of their decisions in human, physical and regional dimensions.

There is, however, an intervening stage which is necessary for the scenario above to become a

possibility, and that is for general acknowledgement of the contributions geography can make to

become recognised and accorded value. At the moment I do not feel that this is the case. Geography

is either deemed to be "valuable" - because it informs you where places are and what they are like;

or "interesting" - because it deals with topical issues such as rain forest destruction. At year 9

parents' evenings it is nearly always a combination of these two reasons which makes parents

consider the subject a reasonable one for their daughter or son to pursue at GCSE. And 1 guess I go

along with them as I stress the importance of a student being interested in a subject to provide the

necessary motivation to obtain a good grade at the end of the course.

But if I talk about the "value" of the subject, it is often narrowly understood in terms of its value to

the tourism industry or, at a stretch, cartography. We are hard-pressed to come up with any other

areas in which geography, as it is popularly perceived, is put into direct practice.

If I have a receptive audience in front of me I may try to advise parents to consider geography as

more than an area of knowledge. I explain that the subject has a distinctive way of analysing issues,

has a problem-solving methodology, and involves research skills in disciplined fieldwork. In many

instances parents will nod, and one can see realisation spread across their faces as they grasp why

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"geography is so different from when I was at school". It is a short jump then to suggesting that

these skills and competencies are widely valued in all manner of vocational settings.

I imagine countless parents' evenings follow this frequently repeated performance. 1 do not mind

explaining geography's relevance in this way, but do feel concerned at the continuing need to do so:

that there is no core concept of what geography "does" or "is for” amongst the wider public's

perception. Until geographers can offer a clear, unambiguous image of what the study of the subject

provides, then the contribution that geography and geographers can make in so many spheres of

economic, environmental and social life, will remain under-rated.

How many of us were delighted when Simon Jenkins wrote in The Times a few years ago about his

rediscovery of the joys of geography? For here was someone with the legitimacy of being rooted in

the real world who had come across our creation and judged it to be good. But we cannot for its

century afford to be the passive party in this dialogue. It is incumbent upon geographers to present a

model which is clearly defined and readily held in mind of what we can do, what we can contribute,

and what people will get when they employ one of us.

There has been one hundred years of fertile development in the subject by its practitioners. The

increasing rigour and academic weightiness of the subject has made it a force to be reckoned with in

the academic world. It has moved from being a subject which rarely appeared as a degree subject

before the 1920s, to one which commands major departments in nearly all universities, and whose

popularity as a GCSE and A-level subject places it up amongst the leaders. But there is now a wider

audience to convince of the legitimacy of what the subject.’