The British government has launched a £2 million plan to increase interest in geography in the schools. The plan includes sending geographers to talk to students, improved teacher training, and, I kid you not, sending a copy of former Monty Python star Michael Palin's book Himalaya to every secondary school in the United Kingdom. The government is attempting to combat the decrease in the number of students taking A-levels and GCSEs in geography.
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Have they finally realised that geography isn’t just learning about places and things? Geography is a way of thinking. It is a subject unique in how it demands students to take long, medium and short-term views of situations. It teaches them to avoid the pitfalls of short-termism practised by governments and businessmen alike to the detriment of us all in the long run. Hooray for anything that will increase the number of A level geographers. Then all we need is the return of that jewel in the educational crown: the REAL A level, where reasearch and argued essays are needed!
Hi Kim! Thanks for your post; I wholeheartedly agree!
Kim Hollingshead is right about what Geography is NOT. But isn’t that how interest in it began for most of us?
Travel (by surface transport), postage stamps (remember them?), colorful maps, and now TV. Those are the things that light the flame. In some it flares, in others it dies out.
Let us resolve, to the extent possible, to do our holiday travel by train or bus; to send letters instead of e-mails unless it is absolutely unavoidable; To walk short distances rather than drive or take public transport; to use maps for finding our way around and to help others find theirs by sketching maps for them. The rest would, I am sure, automatically follow.
When I went to Grammar School in London many years ago we had a wonderful Geography teacher by the name of Miss Stevenson. She had the knack of making her lessons both interesting and lasting! It’s the teacher that makes all the difference and I remember it after all these years(over 50 years ago!)
May Mr Palin go from strength to strength!
I am a British expat teaching AP Human Geography in the US. It’s great to see that someone in the department of education (Maybe they had a truly inspiring geography teacher like I did- Roger Redfern- catch him in the country diary in the Guardian),eventually realised what all geographers had realised long ago. Geography is the most important subject taught in schools as it links the skills that students learn in other subjects and gives them meaning.
Please don’t bash Palin. If he can increase awareness for geographers it can only be a good thing.
Why the derogatory “yes the monty python” remark?
Along with David Attenbrough Palin is one of the most widely travelled men in the world – and he has brought his inspiring journeys to our screens in programs like; full circle, pole to pole, sahara, around the world in 80 days and so on. And he didnt just take his travels to tourist areas – he went to the actual countries and saw the spoke to actual people on his quests.
So let me join in with Gooders – please do not knock Michael Palin
I would certainly never knock Palin. His travels are geographies in themselves. OK, he tends, for obvious reasons, to highlight the unusual but he also leaves us with a need to find out more about the country/area he is visiting.
I certainly agree that geography is the most important subject studies in schools (and beyond)in that it give us the overview of what’s happening – none of the blinkered approach so common in other disciplines. More politicians should be geographers – they wouldn’t produce so many policies with conflicting aims!
Viva geography and thanks Michael palin!