today was the first day of the conference of the British Sub-committee of the International Geographical Union's Commission for Geographical Education (IGU-CGE).
the conference is being held in London and its theme is 'Changing geographies: Innovative curricula'.
Odd Ing Steen, of the University of Bergen in Norway, presented a paper entitled 'Field studies in Higher Education - some implications for teacher-training courses'. sharing from fieldwork experiences as diverse as India and Tanzania, one of his main points was where we wish to locate ourselves along the fieldwork spectrum of observer -> participant. he suggested the intermediary concept of 'interlocutor', and talked about how it allowed for a greater understanding of (as he put it) "geographical situational complexity of thematic problem areas", as opposed to the excessively localised knowledge of the participant.
Daniela Dumbraveanu, of the University of Bucharest, talked about 'Geography fieldwork as an interdisciplinary, multipurpose teaching instrument for schools'. she described a project between undergraduate teacher-trainees and primary schools, which involved the undergrads designing and implementing interpretive tourism activities for the primary school pupils.
Maria Attard, of the University of Malta, introduced us to (among other things), the concept of 'joygraphy'. in her talk, entitled 'Developing transitional geographies through fieldwork', she described three field sessions - geography of the streetscape; the human ecology of life within the fortifications of Malta; and joygraphy at Christmas: decorations visible in the street environment. i feel that her concept of studying spatial and temporal variations in festive decorations, as a window into popular geographies, very fascinating and certainly relevant to multicultural societies such as Singapore.
Lex Chalmers, of the University of Waikato, New Zealand, gave the opening keynote. it was entitled 'The geographies of places, spaces and their representation in school curricula'. he took us on a philosophical journey from Kant, Darwin and von Humboldt, tracing the history of curriculum development and innovation. he also introduced us to what he has termed 'the century of curriculum cohesion', which began with the work of MacKinder, and ended with Andrew Goudie's paper in 1993 on 'Schools and universities: The great divide', which was published in volume 78 of Geography. within this so-called curricular-cohesive period was the Treaty of Waitango in 1975 (which, Chalmers argued, served to raise the issue of the education of the First Peoples to the fore), and - more negatively - the decentralization, corporatization, and general liberalization associated with the years of Thatcher and Reagan. Chalmers reminded us that these tensions were first highlighted in Eleanor Rawling's (2001) book Changing the subject: The impact of national policy on school geography 1980-2000, which was published by the Geographical Association. That same year - just as a similar move was undertaken in Singapore - geography in New Zealand was grouped with Economics, History and Social Studies in the Social Sciences learning area. in the New Zealand curriculum at least, Chalmers argued that geographers should take the lead in the themes of sustainability and globalization.
Christian Matzka, of the University of Vienna, talked about 'Vienna's Heldenplatz, the Czech Republic and Carinthian problem: Education in geography - historically-determined problem'. just like Gerry O'Reilly of Dublin City University (who's paper was entitled 'Citizenship and democracy: Geography fieldtrips in Boyne Valley - symbolic places and contested spaces'), he alerted us to the fact very often, there are 'guilty landscapes' which are tacitly understood. O'Reilly took the opportunity to introduce us to the term pentimento, by which he referred to elements in the landscape which surface to the careful observer after being shaped by previous generations, cultures and histories. Matzka had unwittingly been describing pentimento too, as he talked about 'wars of place names' and spatial variations in views towards nuclear power stations as used by Austria's neighbours.
finally, O'Reilly's colleague at Dublin City University - Susan Hegarty - presented on 'Changing circumstances, changing technologies, same values: Maintaining the centrality of fieldwork with increasing numbers'. she described how fieldwork is carried out by her undergrads in groups, each working on their own microtasks, then using a Learning Management System to follow through their findings.
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