Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography

1. 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

2. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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?”

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

4. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 2003-2006, The story so far……. • 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

5. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

6. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 2006, The next instalment……. 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,”

7. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography • 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

8. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography The project has powerfully linked cognitive and affective learning through geographical enquiries that emphasise dialogue.

9. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography Personal Understanding Knowledge Valuing Places enquiries take place here and connect the three ‘domains’. This is the area where enquiry “takes you beyond” what you already know. Shared Social Understanding

10. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

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12. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography “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

13. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

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15. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

16. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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.

17. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography Places do not simply have a physical location. Every place also has an associated social and emotional understanding Learning in geography is lacking if we do not include these

18. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography Personal sense of place, geographical imagination The physical location of places Valuing Places enquiries take place here and connect the three ‘domains’. This is the area where enquiry “takes you beyond” what you already know. Places and their relative location, shared social meaning.

19. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography “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

20. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography “It is now space rather than time that hides consequences from us “ John Berger, 1974

21. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

22. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography • 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

23. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, 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

24. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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

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26. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography 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.

27. Valuing Places, Valuing Teachers, Valuing Geography “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

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