Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography

Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography

“The idea of interdependence is old hat to geographers, but for most people it is a new garment that they are only now trying on for size.”

Annan, 2001


The Valuing Places project aims to promote a coherent view of geography’s potential as an educational resource. As a project it has put place under the microscope and highlights interconnectedness.

The project asks us to consider “How can we teach about places in a way that develops learners’ sense of global interconnectedness?”


Valuing Places has sought to emphasise•Place•Scale•Interconnections•Geographical Imagination•“Think Maps”,In other words, thinking geographically!


• Steering Group Membership of 12•12 Regional Coordinators•63 Teacher Researchers•At least 60 schools•At least 2000 pupils•523 participants attended regional conferences Oct/Nov 2005

2003-2006, The story so far…….


•Website•Conferences and Development Days•Teaching Geography, Spring 2005•Primary Geographer, Autumn 2005•Meeting SEN in Geography with David Fulton, December 2005•Planned Gifted and Talented Publication

2003-2006, The story so far…….


A spatial filing system on the website sharing teachers’ work, available from

September 2006

Planned publication, for teachers of KS2 & 3 “Valuing Places – Thinking Geographically,”

2006, The next instalment…….


•Action Plan for Geography•Key Stage 3 Curriculum Review

“Geography matters to everyone. It is the gateway to understanding the rich variety of landscapes and different cultures around the world. This is why I am delighted to announce the biggest ever programme to boost Geography in schools. Our investment will give teachers more support and professional development opportunities, to make geography teaching more inspirational and relevant.”

Lord Adonis, March 2006


The project has powerfully linked cognitive and affective learning through geographical enquiries that emphasise dialogue.


Knowledge

PersonalUnderstanding

Shared Social Understanding

Valuing Places enquiries take place here and connect the three ‘domains’. This is the area where enquiry “takes you beyond” what you already know.


Geography is about places. (Knowledge, the cognitive domain, place ,scale) It is not just about knowing about places themselves, but understanding the interdependence and connectivity of places.(social domain- framework of shared meaning, interconnections) It is about empowering tomorrow’s adults to develop real global understanding and global citizenship so that they have the intellectual understanding to participate individually and collectively in shaping world around them. (personal geographies– geographical imaginations, think maps)

David Bell, former Chief HMI, 2005



“Risk assessment is central to living and success requires being prepared to take calculated risks. There is after all, always a risk attached to not taking a risk.”

Sachs, 2003


Come back down to earth and produce something that is of direct use in the classroom!

“Educators should be engaged in spirited debate and not merely implementation”

Sachs, 2003



This is all very placey-placey……

“We now know that the human brain creates meaning through perceiving patterns and making connections and that this thought is filtered through the emotional part of the brain first. The likelihood of understanding taking place is therefore increased significantly if the experience has some kind of emotional meaning.”

CCEA, 2003


Places are not neutral. Place names on a map do not tell us how we feel about these places. That comes across with how we use them in discussion, dialogue and representations.


Places do not simply have a physical location.Every place also has an associated social and emotional understandingLearning in geography is lacking if we do not include these


The physical location of places

Personal sense of place, geographical imagination

Places and their relative location, shared social meaning.

Valuing Places enquiries take place here and connect the three ‘domains’. This is the area where enquiry “takes you beyond” what you already know.


“Whilst the mass media give us apparently intimate contact with distressing scenes from around the world, should we take the view that charity begins at home and that the further away the problem is, the less of a problem that it is.”

Sachs, 2003


“It is now space rather than time that hides consequences from us “ John Berger, 1974


So part of what it means to be human is concerned with enquiring into spatial relationships and through geography education making these transparent through developing both knowledge, and more sophisticated geographical imaginations


Any Valuing Places Enquiry should have a

•Social dimension, learning from each other – valuing teachers

•Cognitive dimension – valuing places

•An expressive or personal dimension – valuing geography


“You have had bits and pieces of the story

but not the whole picture………

when what you have needed all along

is a map.”John White, 2003


Where would you draw a line around the grounded reality of your daily life?” Massey, 2004, p.7

If globalisation is seen as a force all around us, ‘out there’ and beyond our control – and not located in the here and now – then there are dangers. This approach could lead to classrooms within which globalisation is imagined as an uncontrollable force that no-one can influence.Allen, 2004



Geography is not just concerned with acquiring knowledge therefore, important though this is. It is also concerned with developing pupils’ conceptual understanding in ways that help them think more effectively – more intelligently – about their world and their interaction with it.


“From a period of standardization, we should now look forward to a period of diversity”Sachs, 2003

“each moment is a place you’ve never been” Kehl, 1983 p.30


Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography

Documents

valuing teachers

valuing geographygeography

valuing geographythe

valuing geographyaction

connectivity of places

teachers of ks2

geography teaching

real global understanding