A recent story in the Orlando Sentinel sounded the alert that geography education has been neglected in American schools and, surprisingly, in higher education. The discipline that Alexander Graham Bell (an early director of the National Geographic Society) defined as “the world and everything in it” has been flung by the wayside, especially as a result of No Child Left Behind’s focus on literacy, math, and science.
First, let’s ask, “what is geography?”
Well, if we take Bell’s definition, it’s just about everything. We have physical geography, which explores the physical features of the planet, including landforms and the atmosphere. So geography includes both geology and meteorology (or climatology, if you prefer). We also have political geography, which includes the interaction of nation states and the battle for human control of the earth’s resources. So geography is also akin to political science. Then there is economic geography, which focuses more narrowly on the earth’s resources and how humans make use of them. So geography is similar to economics, perhaps, too. Human geography includes these latter two sorts of “human-environment” interaction, plus a heavy dose of human cultures, which have developed in connection with the inhabitants’ physical geography. So geography is also related to anthropology.
So geography is just about every social science discipline–all rolled into one. Geology. Meteorology. Political Science. Economics. Anthropology.
(I’ll leave it to another day to debate whether geography really is a separate discipline. For if geography contains all the social sciences, it’s hard to make a case for studying it separately. And most colleges and universities have eliminated geography programs for that reason. I’m not sure this is a good thing, but we’ll leave that line of inquiry for later.)
So if geography is a disciplinary cornucopia, how is it taught? What is the focus of geography lessons our schools? MAPS.
Can you locate this bay?
Do you know the latitude and longitude of this?
How many lakes are there in Finland?
What is the capital of Upper Slobovia?
Can you just feel students’ excitement in studying this stuff? What’s Rhett Butler’s line? “Frankly, Teach, I don’t give a damn.”
The National Geographic Society has made a ruckus about the lack of geography education in America. For example, the NGS commissioned a Roper poll to gauge the geographic literacy of young people. Naturally, young people have a hard time finding the Pacific Ocean on a map, much less pinpointing where Israel is located. All one need do is watch Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking” segments from time to time to know that American’s are geographically ignorant.
But frankly, my dears, is it really all that important to locate stuff on a map? I mean, it’s nice to know that the capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo. But why does a 9th grader need to know that? What’s the connection?
In fact, if you look at the National Geography Standards, developed by the National Geographic Society and others, you’ll find that “location” is only one of the 18 standards. The standards supposedly support much deeper understanding of political, economic, cultural, and physical geography.
And yet, ask most teachers what geography is or how they are teaching you, they’ll point to the pretty, student-produced maps around the room. Which is a far cry from Alexander Graham Bell’s vision of the discipline. It’s also a far cry from what we really want our kids to know and understand about our world.
So what is National Geographic doing about this appalling dearth of geography awareness? Well, first and foremost, they’re launching a media campaign. Nothing like a little PR to get things stirred up.
National Geographic and leading education, business, and nonprofit partners have launched My Wonderful World, a campaign to increase global learning in school, at home, and in the community. With the help of parents, teachers—and you—we can help give our youth the power of global knowledge. Because kids who understand our world today can succeed in it tomorrow.
Fine and dandy. A media campaign. But with all the resources at its disposal, what is National Geographic doing about textbooks? What impact does National Geographic have on how geography is taught in our schools?
Frighteningly, one of the worst-rated textbooks I have worked with is the Glencoe World Geography textbook endorsed by the National Geographic Society. Furthermore, the author of this book, Richard G. Boehm, was a leader of the panel that developed the national geography standards! Yet when a team of well-trained teachers in one of our client districts reviewed this textbook, it ranked near the bottom of the pile. (To read a summary of our review of the Glencoe book, click over here).
While I myself am something of a geography nut (I can indulge my imagination for hours looking at a National Geographic atlas), and while my kids and I play “name that capital” games in the car, I have to admit that most of the questions asked in the Roper poll and identified in the Orlando Sentinel article amount to little more than trivia. Nothing conceptual about this trivia. So why learn it?
Actually, there are lots of reasons to learn about geography. And I suppose National Geographic’s “My Wonderful World” campaign is a step in the right direction.
But why is National Geographic Society endorsing a lousy textbook? The prose is boring and convoluted. So much information is packed between its covers that it reads more like an encyclopedia than a resource for student learning. It’s a bunch of facts. Here’s an excerpt from page 136 of the teacher’s wraparound edition:
Coastal Cities
Many population centers in the United States and Canada lie in coastal areas where healthy economies support large populations. Along the northern Atlantic coast of the United States, for example, a chain of closely linked metropolitan areas forms a “megalopolis,” or “great city.” Home to abut 42 million people, this megalopolis–nicknamed BosWash–includes the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Four of the cities–Boston, New York, Philadephia, and Baltimore–are important world trade centers because of their coastal or near coastal locations. The planned city of Washington, D.C., established on the Potomac River near the Chesapeake Bay, is the country’s capital.
Okay, class, how many facts are contained in this paragraph? What region is being discussed? What is a megalopolis? Where is BosWash? What is it? How many people live there? What is the capital of the United States? On what river is it located? Near what bay is this river located?
Who cares?
WHY the heck is any of this information important for a 9th grader to know? The one tidbit of information contained in the paragraph that has some conceptual value is drowned by the facts: what is the relationship between economic vitality and population distribution? This is an analytical or conceptual relationship that could be–should be–the basis for a decent lesson in geography.
But the lugubrious, jam-packed prose bores the reader to death before we even have a chance to ask a decent inquiry question.
To me, those who believe in geography education so fervently must do a better job of demonstrating how geography can be taught in a relevant, interesting, engaging way. There is at least one textbook out there that does a pretty good job.
But it is so disappointing that National Geographic has chosen to support one of the worst high school geography books on the market today.
Mark Montgomery
EdVantage Consulting
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