1 / 1

Current Reality in Geography Education

The Geography and History Connection in the Middle School Social Studies Classroom Diane Godfrey Pueblo Middle School. Challenges. Introduction. Is it History, Geography, Historical Geography or Geographical History?. Exemplars in Integration of Geography and History.

minowa
Download Presentation

Current Reality in Geography Education

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. The Geography and History Connection in the Middle School Social Studies Classroom Diane Godfrey Pueblo Middle School Challenges Introduction Is it History, Geography, Historical Geography or Geographical History? Exemplars in Integration of Geography and History • Understanding what is geography and the geographic perspective and what is history and the historical perspective in order to explore meaningful integration between the two disciplines. • Geographers may agree on the basic definition of geography; however, there is considerable disagreement within the world of academic geography when it comes to the sub-disciplines of geography. • If geographers have difficulty building an integrated relationship between the sub-disciplines of geography, how will we be able to integrate with the history discipline? • Geography exists as a coherent discipline, with its own methods and rules for generating and reasoning about spatial knowledge. The geography taught in history courses often lacks such coherence (Gregg and Leinhardt, 2004). Helping teachers learn the geography concepts that are necessary for good history instruction is essential (Gregg and Leinhardt, 2004). • Pre-service elementary teachers report concern they may not have enough content knowledge to become effective social studies teachers (McCall, Jansen, and Riederer, 2008). • When asked to identify needs to better teach geography and history teacher preparation at the university level was identified as not meeting the needs of the teachers. (Leming, Ellington & Schug, 2006) • Availability of textbooks and Pre-made materials which incorporate good geography and history "When you point out that, yes, things happen over time, and so have a history, but that they also happen in space at particular places, so they must also have a geography, people either do a "Huh?," or sit back and say, "Hm, yes, I never thought about it like that before." -Peter Gould • The geographic perspective provided by thinking in locational and spatial terms may be applied in a wide range of historical situation. • Andre Wink – “History of the Indian Ocean” introduces a geographic dimension to account for continuities and changes in social and economic organizations over time in the region • Donald Meinig - 500 years of American History. • Time and Space Convergence: A Joint U.S. history-Geography Curriculum • A curriculum framework for U.S. a history teacher that emphasizes geographical aspects of historical events, places, and idea. Includes ways that geography could be included in the curriculum to enrich student understanding in history. Time and Space Convergence: Samples of the Matrix: There has been a long standing divide between human and physical geographers, as well as conflict over what exactly each sub-discipline of geography encompasses. During the early 20th century geographers began to focus more on the human or cultural aspects of the discipline. One current school of thought was put forward by Doreen Massey on the connections of time and space in the sub-fields. Massey defines both human and physical geography as complex and historical sciences. For Massey both physical and human geography would benefit from the recognition that many of the process they deal with are of a time-dependent nature. Almost all social studies teachers recognize that you cannot teach history without teaching geography. However, in practice this seldom occurs. Geography has played a crucial role in history by shaping the characteristics of places and peoples. Two question become evident. First, why have the two disciplines been unable to come together to understand how the two can enrich and compliment the work of each discipline for the benefit of teaching students. Secondly, what will it take to create a shift to a teaching approach that includes a meaningful integration of the disciplines of history and geography. Historical Geography Time serves as a unifying connection to the discipline of history whose main focus is on time. It is from this school of thought the historical geography finds its voice. A definition proposed by Alan H. R. Baker of historical geography is: historical geography comprises a geographical analysis of the past. Its methods of inquiry are shared with the discipline of history, and its problems with the discipline of geography. Its questions and subjects have changed over time and will change again, but several long-standing research areas or themes help to give the field coherence. These themes include location, environment, landscape, and region which crossover into other disciplines. Carville Earle states that the perspective of [historical] geography first focuses upon those relationships which have shaped the evolution of place and landscape; geographical history, in contrast, focuses upon those relationships which have shaped human affairs in the past (Baker, 2007). Historical geography is not a body of facts or theories sitting there to be applied, it is a perspective, a way seeing, of thinking (Meinig, 1989) • Background on Geography and History Pedagogy • For the past 50 years the United States has used the same scope and sequence approach for elementary social studies instruction • Shift in education toward standards-based education which can be in conflict with scope and sequence approaches in use. • There have been basically two approaches -- the expanding communities and core knowledge. • Two basic approaches to geography in the social studies • Embedded in social studies lessons: • Rational: allows better chance that information other than place-name trivia will form the content of knowledge of geography • Separate subject: • Rational: Lack of training of most social studies teachers doesn’t allow for solid knowledge of geography Conclusions The real challenge becomes how to take the research and literature on the nature of geographical history and historical geography and weave them into a meaningful vehicle for teaching middle school students. Perhaps the term “GeoHistory” should be the abbreviated term for the instructional approach which provides a “geographic perspective to history”. The term “geohistorian” would be used as an educational term for someone that teaches history by including the geographic perspective. As an educational term geohistory transcends the semantics arguments of university academics in the disciplines of history and geography. History or Geography In its simplest form, geography is the science of location and distribution and the art of describing the spatial or geographical patterns of phenomena in particular places at given times (Baker, 2007). History is the discipline that studies the chronological record of events (as affecting a nation or people), based on a critical examination of source materials and usually presenting an explanation of their causes. The influence in history has been at the center of debate between historians and geographers about the extent to which geography has influenced history. Assessing the impact of human activities on physical environments and their role in the transformation of spaces into places and in the making of landscapes has been a fundamental concern of academic geography for centuries (Glacken 1967). Historians may not be aware of this area of study in the field of geography, since historians have been exploring this relationship between society and nature but with the label of “environmental history”. History seeks to help us understand who we are and how we became that way. These histories are concerned with people to people interactions that shape humanity in a variety of ways. The geography concerns the geography and the relationship of people to their environment. Together these two concerns combine to create historical geography. Leonard Guelke advocates restructuring the way historical geographers approach history. Move beyond the description of the changes people have made to their environment to include the part of history that includes understanding the values and actions of the people. Historical geographers should encourage geographers to see human activities on the earth as an expression of human thought – the why of the actions and not just the how these actions shape the landscape. • Current Reality in Geography Education • National Random Survey of Elementary and Middle School Social Studies Teachers (Leming, Ellington & Schug, 2006)– importance of social studies and time spent teaching social studies • Key Findings: • 70% of second through fifth grade teachers spent less than four hours a week teaching social studies • Twenty-nine percent of the teachers felt that social studies disciplines were given importance at their school. In comparison 90% of schools considered math and reading highly important. • History was viewed by as important by over one-third of the teachers, while geography was report by only 14% of the teachers as important. • Madeleine Gregg and Gaea Leinhardt (Greg & Leinhardt, 1993) survey examining the extent of passing and substantive geography instruction present in history classrooms • Key Finding: • 75 percent of all the geography references were passing and not substantive • Today geography faces stiff curricular competition from the continued emphasis on reading, writing, math, and science. This competition seems to squeeze out any systematic attention to geography and the other social studies disciplines. • Ninety percent of teachers use textbooks for homework and reading assignments (Thomas B. Fordham Institute). Textbook manufactures can play a vital role in identifying places in the delivery of curriculum for meaningful geography integration. • ERSI – Integrative Geohistorical Inquiry • Frame geohistorical research in key themes • Engage in local geohistorical studies • Shift between local outcomes and larger context • Apply findings to the present and the future • Transfer knowledge and skills to other places, times, and themes Thinking About Geography and History Integration: Planning for Middle School Instruction by Diane Godfrey ERSI Themes People-culture, politics, economics, and technology Landscape – water, landforms, resources, climate, and biota Interactions of people, land, and time – exploration, settlement, conflict, boundaries, networks, and change. The Lodge Pole River Project A cooperative effort in the state of Oklahoma to address the teaching of American Indians. The project was a three-year project designed to change educator perceptions of American Indian historical geography and encourage the creation of balanced and culturally sensitive American Indian K-12 curriculum. (Hurt and Wallace, 2005) Carl O. Sauer -- the geography of the present day is but a thin layer that even at this moment is becoming history . . . can we draw a line between geography and history?

More Related