Hi everyone. I'll like to know how many people had geography as an actually class in school? When I tell people that I had both Geography and Social Studies as two separate subjects they always ask where I went to school and upon finding that I was schooled outside the U.S then I get "oh that explains it"
My major is Geography with minor in History but there is no Geography teaching program so I'm cast into the Social Studies program not saying there is anything wrong with that but from I have observe and heard, the way knowledge is presented in Social Studies comprises of History being the main course and a couple of side dishes such as Economics, Political Science, and Geography thrown in all served on a large CONTENT plate.
I believe that the reason why so Social Studies is seen as bland is because the teacher is letting the history books teach the class and this is also perpetrated by what type of spin is put on different topics by the writers of these books and what they think students should know but at the same time leaving out important fact that they might see as unnecessary to be mention (these facts are normally the stories of minorities)
So instead of knowledge being presented in the traditional way where the teacher just lecture you to death & after 10 minutes all a student hear is blah blah blah hopefully we move to a stage where the teacher has to put themselves in the shoes of students and ask the 2 basic questions of "why" and "so what"
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3 comments:
Philip,
I had geography as a separate class in 7th grade. After that, it was mostly history. I don't remember too much from geography class, but I do remember doing A LOT with maps. We had to create a lot of maps. I think we made a map for each continent, and each country had to be a different color. The colors couldn't touch each other -- Europe was a pain in ass because of all the tiny countries, haha... Anyway, I have a good sense of geography (I think...), so I guess it worked.
I remember taking a geography class in like 6th grade, and memorizing the U.S. states and their capitals, but not really other countries' locations. Then, sometimes in High School, if we were studying the Middle East, for example, we would have to memorize the Middle Eastern map, and the same thing with Africa and Asia. However, now, whenever I need to use geography for things like trivia questions (Jepoardy!!!)) or keeping up with today's politics, I have basically no clue where anything is. So, you can see just how helpful my minimal geography training has been.
I think where ever you went to school outside the US had the right idea. I think that geography is one of the most important things that all humans should know. I mean it is earth... it is where we live. I think subjects like that should be enforced more. I also think that there should be more classes in high school about life. Maybe a class where you learn how to write a check, understands loans and how to pay them (especially since after high school most students want to go to college), how to pay and understand credit cards, how to change a tire.. I could go on forever... my point is, as I get older I find things like geography along with other things are in our everyday lives that school did not really prepare us for. I am not saying history is not important. Because i think that is it good that we learn about lives in the past, but we should also be learning about our lives in the future.
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