John Westaway\'s Keynote PowerPoint

$: John Westaway\'s Keynote PowerPoint$
GA Conference 2008

Presidential Address

Sustaining Geography

John Westaway, GA President

Sustaining geography• Geography – past, present and future

• Who are geographers and where do they come from?• Where is geography now and how did it get there?• What next for geography?

• Geography for sustainable development and the sustainable development of geography

Who are geographers and where do they come from?

Geography – past, present and future

The invisibility of geographers

• Who and where are all the geographers?

• GA as Geographers Anonymous?

Guess the subject! It was his love of maps, of globes and atlases, which

had years ago led him, in a roundabout way, into the world of _______. So many maps had he pored over in his time that he dressed, without fully realizing, in the pastels of cartography: yellow corduroy trousers (6000-9000 feet above sea level), the jacket of darkly woven maroon (Antarctic Tundra), shirt of Viyella peach (less than 1 inch of rainfall per annum), and the red fleck on his woollen tie looked like International Boundaries or population over 500 persons per square mile.’

From: Homesickness by Murray Ball

zoology

and the missing word is ….

Where do geographers come from?

• Some are born geographers

• Some achieve geography

• Some have geography thrust upon them

Some are born geographersDaydreams in the classroom

•Football (Bristol City) •Cricket (Gloucestershire) •Pop music (Rolling Stones et al)

Some have geography thrust upon them

Some achieve geography

What attracts young people to geography?

• Attractions of the subject?• Charismatic teachers and/or good

teaching?

• Being good at it?

• Leads to a particular career?

Attractions of geography?

• Exotic places?

• Issues?

• Physical environment?

• Fieldwork?

Charismatic teachers or good teaching?

Good at geography?

Bristol – a GA President hotspot

Pat Cleverley (1984-85); Vic Dennison (1980-81); Sheila Jones (1975-76)

Bristol – a GA President hotspot

Jeremy Krause2001-02

Chris Kington 2002-03

Margaret Roberts 2008-09

John Hopkin

2010-11

The quantitative approach

GAPi /GAP__________

Popi/PopWhere:

GAPi is the number of GA presidents who were born, live

or lived, teach or taught in city i

GAP is the number of GA presidents in the nation

Popi is the population of city i

Pop is the population of the nation

Source: Walter Isard. Methods of Regional Analysis. MIT Press, 1960

And the results are …

1975-2011Location quotient – 20.2

How to make more young people achieve geography

• Ensure young people continue to experience geography

• Ensure that what they experience is high quality geography


Where is geography now and how did it get there?

Where is geography now?

• Marginalisation of geography in primary (and secondary?) schools

• Declining numbers at GCSE & A level

• Lots of satisfactory or worse geography teaching (Ofsted)

• Poor public image – pub quizzes; boring• Invisibility of geographers

… and how did it get there?

• The Halcyon Days of Geography(?): the whole of geography until 1991

• Post-National Curriculum – the Dark Ages(?): 1991-2008

A brief history of geography

The Halcyon Days? 1960s

The Halcyon Days?

• GYSL• Bristol Project• Geography 16-19

But …..

‘…(there is) the need for a close and critical look at all tasks requiring straight copying, an exercise with more custodial than educational usefulness. Copying is not as rife at Hampstead as elsewhere … ’

‘… too much time is spent in transferring quite complex maps and diagrams from printed page or blackboard …’

Notes based on an Inspectorate Study visit, 1981

1970s & 1980s

The Dark Ages?

• 1991-95: the 1991 National Curriculum



The 1991 National Curriculum

1991-1995• Compulsory geography 5-16

• Overloaded & overprescriptive curriculum

– 5 Attainment targets

– 183 Statements of Attainment

– 10 levels of attainment

• Standard Attainment Tasks (SATs) developed for key stage 1-3 geography

• ‘Double page spread’ textbooks making sense of the NC

• Testing & school performance tables

Geography SATs

1995-2000

• Geography optional in key stage 4

• No statutory testing of geography in key stages 1-3 – Teacher Assessment instead

• Dearing Review – revised NC for Geography

– Reduced content

– Single attainment target

– 8 levels of attainment plus EP; level descriptions

• Optional Tests and Tasks for Key Stage 3

• Schemes of Work for key stages 1 and 2

• Relaxation of PoS in key stages 1 & 2

2000-08

• Revised NC for geography

– Further content reduction

– Increased flexibility through reorganisation

• Return to full National Curriculum in primary schools

• Scheme of Work for key stage 3

So why is geography faring so badly?

• Are things that much worse than in 1990?

• Tests, league tables and subject priorities?

• Quality of teaching?

• More competition?

• Curriculum non-development?

• Non-specialist teachers/less subject support?


What next for geography?

At the crossroads: 2008

• Primary review

• New secondary (ie key stage 3) curriculum • 14-19

– New GCSEs (2009) and A levels – Diplomas, including one for Humanities

‘Geography is at a crucial period in its development. More needs to be done to make the subject relevant and more engaging for pupils, particularly at Key Stage 3’. Christine Gilbert, HMCI

Opportunities & Challenges: Primary Review

• New improved geography curriculum?

But:• Aims of primary review – more time for literacy & numeracy; arts & music? PE & sport? compulsory MFL?

Opportunities & Challenges: Key stage 3

• New, improved programme of study – key concepts; flexibility

But:

• Place of geography (& subjects generally) in whole curriculum – two year key stage 3? Move to more integrated curriculum?

Opportunities & Challenges: 14-19

• New GCSE & AS/A level specifications – scope for improving quality of geography teaching & learning

But:

• Diplomas – new humanities diploma - squeeze on geography GCSE & A level?

• Opportunities provided by the new geography curriculum frameworks

Opportunities & Challenges

• Challenges come from the wider curriculum framework in all key stages & phases. Why should curriculum managers give geography any sort of priority?

• We need to argue the case for geography (again)

A case for geography

• A case for geography 1987

• A case for geography 2008

Different curriculum context - geography

still a statutory subject 5-14, but subjects no longer king Audience for the case for geography not primarily the government, but more curriculum managers in schools

A case for geography

• Stick to our knitting? And become an intrinsic, pure, minority pursuit

• Go for legislation? Because ‘geography is essential’

• Emphasise vocational utility – maps, GIS?

• Argue for extrinsic educational purpose and the contribution geography can make to the educated person?

David Lambert. Paper to GA Governing Body 8 Mar 2008

Choices

Geography for sustainable development and the

sustainable development of geography

A focus on sustainable development?

• Geography has a real opportunity to establish itself more securely in the school curriculum through a more explicit focus on sustainable development

• Sustainable development is near the top of society’s agenda. Government launched Sustainable Schools strategy two years ago - schools will be expected to become more sustainable

The case for a sustainable development focus

• Sustainable development could be

to geography what literacy and numeracy are to English and mathematics

Sustainable development and geography

• The central place of English in the school curriculum owes much to the fact that it includes literacy

• Why can’t geography occupy a more central place in the school curriculum because it includes sustainable development?

• The central place of mathematics in the school curriculum owes much to the fact that it includes numeracy


• We’re already doing it – and have been for many years

• Sustainable development could be to geography what literacy and numeracy are to English and mathematics

GYSL People Place & Work 1975

Geography National Curriculum 1991


• Environmental interaction & sustainable development is one of the seven key concepts identified for geography


• We’re already doing it – and have been for many years

• Significant overlap between geography & ESD

• Sustainable development could be to geography what literacy and numeracy are to English and mathematics

So what is ESD?

‘ESD enables pupils to develop the knowledge, skills, understanding and values to participate in decisions about the way we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will improve the quality of life now without damaging the planet for the future’

National Curriculum 2000

Geography & sustainable development: the overlap

Key processes/key elementsGeography ESD

fieldwork … an essential element

values & attitudes

issues … now & in the future

how … economies, societies &environments are interconnected

questioning, investigation & critical thinking

responsibilities to other people, the environment …

out of classroom learning

viewpoints & opinions

Futures

systems approach – interaction between economic, social & environmental systems

critical thinking …, weighing evidence,presenting reasoned argument

question own lifestyles & attitudes


ConceptsGeography NC GCSE Geog pilot ESD

Place

Space

Scale

Interdependence

Physical & human processes

Environmental interaction & sustainable development

Cultural understanding & diversity

Uneven development

Interdependence

Futures

Sustainability

Globalisation

Citizenship & stewardship

Interdependence

Sustainable change

Needs & rights of future generations

Uncertainty & precaution

Quality of life

Diversity


Content

Geography

Flexible choice of content

ESD

The Sustainable Schools framework ‘doorways’*

* www.teachernet.gov.uk/sustainableschools/

Sustainable Schools

Sustainable schools – travel and traffic

Sustainable schools – global dimension

The challenge for geography

• New curriculum frameworks

• Three more years of the Action Plan for Geography

• The Sustainable Schools strategy

Sustainable schools and geography

So what do we need to do?

What can the GA do?• APG sustainable development strand – curriculum

development examples and online CPD on GTT website;

• Geography Awareness Week (23-27 June) focus on sustainable schools

• Places People Want: building sustainable communities details & online CPD on GA website;

• Focus on sustainable development in journals (Primary Geographer, Autumn 2007; Teaching Geography, articles on sustainable schools, 2008);

What can teachers do?• Make sustainable development more prominent and/or explicit

in your new teaching schemes

• Make explicit links to the Sustainable Schools framework in your teaching schemes

• Check what your school is doing about the Sustainable Schools strategy and ensure SMTs know about it and the central role geography is, or should be, playing

• Be proactive in the school’s adoption of the Sustainable Schools framework, making clear the links to geography scheme of work

• Make geography indispensable – in terms of what and how you teach and your students learn

Geography for sustainabledevelopment …

… and sustainable development of geography!

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