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Geography without geography or subject’s identity crisis

Geography identity: geography as science and school subject

Zigmas
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Geography without geography or subject’s identity crisis

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  1. Geography without geography or subject’s identity crisis Zigmas Kairaitis A tendency for a greater standardisation of the curriculum is gaining ground. Or, according to the educators, the school subjects are ‘placed in a straightjacket’. All disciplines (sciences) became alike – from language and literature to physical training. The sciences that are included in the school curriculum lose their identity as well as their educational function – these are values that have conditioned the inclusion of this field of science (geography) in the list of mandatory school subjects. The identity of subject is further destroyed by the prevailing integration of the curriculum. It is particularly detrimental to geography which consists of physical and human geography. Geography par excellence is an integrated science.

  2. Geography – “ inconvenient ”science Classification of sciences into various groups is as old as the cognitive history. Such classification was usually performed by philosophers, mathematicians, physicists. In the modern times, we can see an interesting situation how geography is treated in various classifications of the fields of science. It is usually ‘unnoticed’ or a single field, usually physical geography, or even geology, is included! And if only geography is included – the entire classification is destroyed. All classifications of the field of science are usually based on a binary access: all sciences are, first of all, classified into natural and human sciences. Geography, being natural and human science at the same time, cannot find its place in the classification of sciences. Geography has nothing to do with it – the classifications of 18th-19thcentury are aged. One geographer once estimated several hundred sciences and claimed that only geography is so unique – it connects natural and human sciences. However, when a geographer claims so, it naturally causes some suspicion...

  3. In the captivity of matrices or a question worth a Nobel Prize According to the European (continental) traditions, geography is attributed to the natural sciences (especially by the German-Russian geography science school). In Anglo-Saxon traditions, especially in school education, geography is attributed to social sciences. In Lithuania, the situation of geography among school subjects became prominent when classifying them into natural and social sciences. For example, when choosing the maturity exams. Some geology, climatology topics were even considered to be attributed to physics, biology subjects. Once, the manager of the National Examination Centre, having no clue where to attribute geography – to natural or social sciences – offered the geographers to sit down and make a collegial decision to which field of science it actually belongs. The answer was – if someone could provide an answer to this question, he/she would deserve a Nobel Prize. Not for nothing A. Einstein, who was interested in geography in his young days, refused it as a complex and incomprehensible science.

  4. ...Maybe it belongs to humanities, elite sciences? In its nature, educational geography is considered as a humanitarian (human) science. The tendency to socialise or naturalise geography does not give any clarity neither for understanding the essence of geography nor the essence of education. Geography is ‘immaterial’ science in essence, and rather expresses the human relation with objects and environment. Following the idea of this essay, it is possible to say that geography is a science of relation. Geography gets all the cognitive and spiritual educational values from this relation. The famous Lithuanian education classics were also the representatives of spiritual (humanitarian) sciences: S. Šalkauskis, A. Maceina, M. Lukšienė. The same is true about J. Dewey, who, first of all, associated education with the humanitarian side (essence) of the subject. Today, such classics would hardly be remembered, if they were the representatives of social or natural sciences.

  5. Conclusion According to its ‘anatomy’, geography is almost identical to... philosophy – the other science of relation (same as theology, however, it will not be discussed here). Both of them have two ‘hemispheres’ – part of natural and social (human) sciences, both are equally ‘useful’ for the usual resident, both flaunt the universality of education and claims to the Royal fellowships. The studies of geography, same as philosophy, are chosen by the dreamers who are looking for the meaning in the world and in life.

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