Transcript www.mageoged.webs.com Progress(ion) in Geography David Lambert Professor of Geography Education Institute of Education London.

www.mageoged.webs.com
Progress(ion) in Geography
David Lambert
Professor of Geography Education
Institute of Education
London
School Geography in England
NC to be revised: simplified and to focus only
on the ‘core knowledge’ of academic subjects
Less concern with skills and competences;
more concern with academic rigour
English Baccalaureate: Eng, Ma, Sc, Lang and
either history or geography (and what else?)
Greater university involvement in A level
specifications
Secretary of State for Education
Michael Gove (2010-present)
State funded academies (and ‘free schools’) no
longer have to follow the NC
Reclaiming the ‘knowledge agenda’
This talk will:
• Not make the mistake of ‘100 academics’
• Establish a principled position for a strong
school geography
• Embrace a progressive, knowledge-led
geography curriculum
The emergence of a learning
“fetish”?
Where ‘learning’ is regarded as:
•
A good thing in itself - and assumed to be value free in this sense.
(It is not. Learning can be trivial, dangerous or wrong)
•
An essentially scientific or technical process –thus, with correct technique, learning
can be ‘accelerated’, as if this were a desirable end in itself.
(But understanding aspects of science, geography, history or art can be counterintuitive, and require sustained, sometimes painstaking effort)
•
Paramount. Teaching is subservient to, and led by, the learning. We become
embarrassed by teaching, and instead talk only about ‘facilitating’ learning.
(A profession that abrogates responsibility in this way may be one that has lost
confidence in itself - and the future)
National Curriculum ‘Big Picture’ [QCDA 2007]
Three key questions
The curriculum aims to enable all young people to become
1
What
are we trying
to achieve?
Curriculum aims
Every Child
Matters outcomes
Focus for learning
Successful learners
Confident individuals
Responsible citizens
who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
who are able to lead safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
who make a positive contribution to society
Be healthy
Stay safe
Enjoy and achieve
Make a positive contribution
Attitudes and attributes
Skills
eg determined, adaptable, confident,
risk-taking, enterprising
eg literacy, numeracy, ICT, personal,
learning and thinking skills
Achieve economic wellbeing
Knowledge and understanding
eg big ideas that shape the world
The curriculum as an entire planned learning experience underpinned by a broad set of common values and purposes
Components
2
How
do we
organise
learning?
Learning
approaches
Whole curriculum
dimensions
Statutory
expectations
Lessons
Locations
A range of
approaches eg
enquiry, active
learning, practical
and constructive
Environment
In tune with
human
development
Building on learning
beyond the school
including community
and business links
Events
Routines
Matching time to
learning need eg
deep, immersive and
regular frequent
learning
Extended hours
Opportunities for
spiritual, moral, social,
cultural, emotional,
intellectual and
physical development
Out of school
Using a range of
audience and
purpose
Including all learners
with opportunities
for learner choice and
personalisation
Overarching themes that have a significance for individuals and society, and provide relevant learning contexts:
Identity and cultural diversity - Healthy lifestyles – Community participation – Enterprise – Global dimension and sustainable development –
Technology and the media – Creativity and critical thinking.
Communication,
language and literacy
A&D
Ci
D&T
Creative
development
En
Knowledge and
understanding of the world
Ge
Hi
ICT
Mathematical
development
Ma
MFL
Personal, social and
emotional development
Mu
PE
PSHE
PW EW+FC
Physical
development
RE
SC
To make learning and teaching more effective so that learners understand quality and how to improve
3
How well
are we
achieving
our aims?
Assessment
fit for purpose
Is integral to Draws on a
effective
wide range of
teaching and evidence of
learning
pupils’ learning
Promotes a
broad and
engaging
curriculum
Gives helpful
Helps identify Links to national
Informs
Embraces
Maximises
Uses tests and
feedback for the clear targets standards which
future
peer- and
pupils’
tasks
learner and other
for
are consistently planning and
selfprogress
appropriately
stakeholders
improvement
interpreted
teaching
assessment
To secure
Accountability
measures
Attainment and
improved standards
Behaviour
and attendance
Civic
participation
Healthy lifestyle
choices
Further involvement in education,
employment or training
Some Questions
Is it OK that students can complete their school geography
(mostly at 14 but in some cases at 18 years) without:
• Understanding latitude, longitude and time zones?
• Knowledge of ocean currents and world wind patterns?
• More than a patchy knowledge of the world’s major biomes?
• (Nick Gibb’s favourite) the certain knowledge that Belgium is a country?
• Understanding the merits (and disadvantages) of Mercator’s projection?
• Knowledge of glaciation and its impacts especially in the northern
hemisphere?
Geographical Association ‘Manifesto’
[2009]
Reasons
Growing ‘genericism’ in the curriculum
• Skills rather than knowledge
• Learning rather than teaching
• Themes/issues rather than subjects
Political influences on the curriculum
• Citizenship?
• Sustainability?
Contents
The subject resource
Thinking geographically
Living geography
Exploration and enquiry
Real world fieldwork
Young people’s geographies
Curriculum Making
animoto_video
short.mp4
Geographical Association: ‘making
geography happen’
Good quality ‘curriculum
Making’
Based on pupils’ work
Attempting to show
progression
Part of The Action Plan for Geography 2009-11
The Geographical Association’s
Geography Curriculum Consultation
2011
Rationale for handling geographical knowledge
- Kn1: geographical contexts; ‘core knowledge’
- Kn2: conceptual content knowledge
- Kn3: ‘procedural’ knowledge and
applied practical skills
www.geography.org.uk/getinvolved/NCconsultation
The Geographical Association
“Thinking Geographically”
National Curriculum proposals 2012
i.
Organised by place, space and environment
ii. Stressing ‘relational thinking’ :for example, with the following ‘couplets’ (after Peter Jackson)
• place and space
• scale and connection
• proximity and distance
• people and environment
Back to basics!
(that is, the fundamental question)
What is school geography for?
• The world beyond experience
• Concepts and theories (‘systematicity’)
• Disciplined communities
All young people should have access to geographical knowledge,
and to encounter the world as an object of disciplined thought
Applying the analysis in real life
Climate change is
“too important to be left to the whim of individual teachers”.
"It appears climate change is being systematically removed
from the curriculum, which is not acceptable...” (UKYCC)
Applying the analysis in real life
Climate change is
“too important to be left to the whim of individual teachers”.
"It appears climate change is being systematically removed
from the curriculum, which is not acceptable...” (UKYCC)
What has been removed (from KS3)?
‘Exploring sustainable development and
its impact on environmental interaction
and climate change.’
In other words, little of substance. And
note, understanding climate and climate
patterns was not required in the pos!
Catching our breath
What are the important distinctions between:
• Curriculum and pedagogy?
• School subject and university discipline?
• Experience of the world (in the everyday) and the
world as an object of thought (in school)?
• Knowledge and skills?
• Content and aims?
And how do we keep these entities connected?
“Bringing Knowledge Back In”
• Schools are special places (they are not ‘everyday
places’)
• Inducting young people into ‘powerful
knowledge’
• Clear distinction between curriculum and
pedagogy
(Michael Young 2008)
Powerful Knowledge?
Characterised by these features:
•
•
•
•
•
It is abstract and theoretical (conceptual)
It is part of a system of thought
It is dynamic, evolving, changing
It is sometimes counter-intuitive
It exists outside the direct experience of the
teacher and the learner
It enables societies to think the ‘unthinkable’ and
the ‘yet-to-be-thought’.
Powerful Knowledge?
Example: ‘Cities’
Many children have a working, everyday
knowledge of living in a city ...
But geography lessons make the city an object of
thought, asking for example:
–
–
–
–
In what circumstances do cities grow?
How are cities organised?
Can cities be regulated, planned and controlled?
What is the ideal city?
(‘to enable societies to think the ‘unthinkable’
and the ‘yet-to-be-thought’)
What kind of (curriculum) Future do we want?
F1
subject delivery – of knowledge for its own sake;
traditional subjects: under-socialised knowledge
F2
skills and ‘learning to learn’ – knowledge is constructed:
over-socialised knowledge; subject divisions are artificial.
Experiential.
F3
subjects are not given (as in F1), but not arbitrary either
(as in F2)
led by ‘... the epistemic rules of specialist communities’
to provide ways to understand the world objectively,
and take pupils beyond their everyday experience.
(Michael Young 2008; 2010)
White Paper: The Importance of Teaching
.... and ‘core knowledge’
‘The National Curriculum should set out clearly the core
knowledge and understanding that all children should
be expected to acquire in the course of their schooling.
(para 4.7)
Does this imply F1?
White Paper: The Importance of Teaching
.... and ‘core knowledge’
‘The National Curriculum should set out clearly the core
knowledge and understanding that all children should
be expected to acquire in the course of their schooling.
(para 4.7)
Does this imply F1?
Or F3?
Returning to ‘curriculum’
From a recent email from a senior official at
the Training Agency, London
“I am looking into how we might need to move
from a position where secondary teachers
deliver a syllabus leading to an exam, to one in
which they are shaping the curriculum”.
Towards a new era of localised
curriculum making?
Curriculum Making
Does this take the
learner beyond
what they
already know ?
Teacher Choices
Underpinned
by Key
Concepts
Which
learning
activity ?
Student Experiences
Geography: the discipline
Thinking
Geographically
www.geography.org.uk/cpdevents/curriculummaking
The moral implications
of teaching geography Some questions:
1.What do children learn (anyhow) through day to
day experience?
2.What do the children need to be exposed to in
geography lessons?
3.In what ways is learning geography in school an
educational achievement?
4.How does it enable students: eg to travel ‘with a
different view’?
Some practical implications
of an ‘F3’ geography Some issues
Geography is a high status academic subject:
• An A-level ‘facilitating’ subject
• A part of the English Baccalaureate
And yet, geography is also a powerful knowledge for all
(ie 5-14 years)
Issue 1
Continuity and progression
• KS2-3
• Raising the profile of ‘geography’ in years 5 and 6?
• KS3- GCSE
• Content specific GCSE national criteria?
• Place specific GCSE specifications?
Some practical implications
of an ‘F3’ geography Some issues
Geography is a high status academic subject:
• An A-level ‘facilitating’ subject
• A part of the English Baccalaureate
And yet, geography is also a powerful knowledge for all
Issue 2
Breadth, depth and challenge
• Is the abolition of level descriptions a problem,
or an opportunity?
• How to distinguish extensive Kn1 from intensive Kn2
- in our day to day teaching?
- in GCSE examinations?