Practising personal values

iii Practising personal values

Geographical educators have placed considerable emphasis on the importance of social and environmental values in the curricular and policy documents, e.g.

300 Teaching Geography in secondary schools International Charter on Geographical Education (IGU.CGE 1992). Generally, these

have been couched in terms of the values it is hoped that learners will develop rather than those that geographical educators will practise. The ideal situation would be for the geographical educators have developed and practised these values in their personal lives. If the learning done by the student is to promote a concern for the environment, an appreciation of the landscape and an empathy for people in other cultures, it will be authenticated (Larsson 1996) if the geographical educators practise their own similar values in the formal learning experience.

People incorporate their personal values into their learning experiences consciously and subconsciously. The challenge for geographical educators is to do so consciously or intentionally. Promoting the belief in a sustainable world can be talked about by geographical educators in their classes. However, it is grasped more meaningfully by both the educator and his or her students when evidence of actual practice of such a value is demonstrated in the educator’s personal life. The extent of commitment to the value will likely be enhanced by people in both these roles.

iv Applying theory and practising skills

An interesting thing appears to have happened in school Geography as the result of the emphasis on enquiry learning. In the learning, the understanding and appli- cation of geographical theory has been largely replaced in post-industrial coun- tries by the process of geographical enquiry, and the development of skills tends to

be an acontextualized experience. This may well reflect what geography has been learned by educators in their pre-service training and the orientations promoted by their university tutors. Somehow, learning to apply theory and using skills as bases for developing geographical understandings need to be highlighted in the learning and professional preparation of geographical educators if they are going to be able to develop comprehensive explanations for events from a geographical perspective.

Geographical educators who have understood their theory will maximize such understanding though direct experience, e.g. in fieldwork, and indirect experi- ence, e.g. viewing a videotape of slum development in a large South American city. Learning how to explain the landform formation on a fieldtrip in the local region or the morphology of a large slum environment is what geographic educa- tors develop as they apply their theoretical understandings to practice or real- world situations.

v Learning through problem-solving

Inquiry learning has been mentioned previously. It, and its predecessor scientific method, have been used by geographical educators as important stimuli for justi- fying the use of problem-solving in formal education. Problem-solving has increased its popularity in professional education through the concept of problem- solving and the recognition in the education and training worlds of problem-solving

Understanding how geographical educators learn in their work 301 as a key competency. One of the challenges for geographical educators is to work

out the extent to which they support inductive, experiential learning and deductive learning. Problem-solving as a learning approach is grounded in the search for solu- tions through data-gathering, to formulate meaning, i.e. to make a decision based on reasoned judgements about the data gathered (e.g. to decide on the extent to which recycling of household products is practised in an urban area), or through testing a hypothesis about some geographical phenomenon, e.g. the velocity across

a stream at different places along its course. The importance of experience should not be underestimated in learning to solve

problems. Everyday expressions of seemingly trivial activities can be very helpful,

e.g. finding one’s way around a large shopping complex, deciding on which slope to plant a particular fruit tree or choosing when to go for a jog when holidaying in a country with an equatorial climate, especially if you come from a mid-latitude country. Geographical educators do learn to improve their decision-making skills by reflecting on such everyday experiences and transferring such competencies to their professional work.

vi Learning through interacting with others

Have you ever wondered why geographical educators congregate at conferences or symposiums? In most cases it is to learn more about their professional area by inter- acting with their colleagues. It is often why at geographical education conferences the practising educators prefer to attend workshops and demonstrations so that they can reflect on their own practice and learn to do things better. Often, geographical educators come to such conferences with a number of their own prob- lems or challenges in mind which they will want to discuss with colleagues or visiting experts in order to improve their own practice.

Within the context of this professional practice, geographical educators have more immediate reasons for interacting with other professionals. They may not be able to operate a computer simulation properly and so they will seek help from the technology co-ordinator. They may not know the route for a particular field trip and so they will need to consult a colleague in the staffroom during recess. They may also need to obtain permission to order a new set of textbooks for the revised curriculum. In each of these cases the geographical educator will interact with another person before making a final decision, hopefully learning from each of these experiences.

vii Learning through offering leadership to others

An opposite way in which geographical educators learn is by leading their peers in professional activities. The learning that comes from preparing a presentation or demonstration for other geographical educators is an important example of experi- ential learning. Structuring a presentation about improving global understanding by using the Internet or organizing a workshop or visualizing environments from interpreting maps both involve careful reflection and decision-making by the

302 Teaching Geography in secondary schools person doing the presentation. Quite often it is associated with geography and for

pedagogic learning. Such learning is confirmed during the presentation if it has been communicated effectively and clearly.

Experienced geographical educators will also learn by mentoring less experi- enced colleagues. It might be assumed that the person being mentored is the one who will do all the learning. However, that is not necessarily so, even though it is expected that he or she will do most of the learning. The experienced geographical educator may have to relearn a particular geographical theory or technique in order to explain and apply it to his or her junior colleague. For example, this person may not have used the theory of spatial diffusion for some years and has to relearn some of its finer aspects before communicating with a junior staff member.

Such leadership can be a very empowering process for both types of participants: for the experienced educator it can improve one’s self-esteem, communication and planning skills and for the inexperienced educator it means learning more and learning it more effectively.

viii Learning through open lateral planning

Geographical educators, like all professional educators, are prone to look beyond their comfort zone and to want to utilize different types of learning activities with their students. Teaching the same concepts and skills year after year using the same sort of strategies can become boring even to the most dedicated geographical educator. Educators go to conferences, read relevant professional journals, seek out people who have been identified by colleagues as ‘innovators’, and are generally searching for fresh ideas both to maintain motivation and to update their profes- sional approaches.

The idea of learning from open lateral planning is based as much on adopting a very open mindset to the teaching of geography as it is of implementing innovative activities in geographical education. The geographical educator needs to develop a willingness and commitment to search for new ideas outside his or her field of study, to take the context of teamwork from a manufacturing plant (the idea of a self- managed work team) and transform it into the concept of autonomous study groups doing library research on a geography topic. There is no limit to the extent to which lateral thinking and planning can be used in the educational experience.

ix Learning by being an advocate for colleagues

Geographical educators are professional educators. While their role of teacher is emphasized most frequently, they do occupy a range of roles which have an advo- cacy aspect to them. It is these roles that come into focus in this instance and from which they extend their professional learning. Such roles may include subject co- ordinator, executive member of a professional association and member of a curric- ulum development committee.

As subject co-ordinator in a school, a geographical educator undertakes to repre- sent the views of his or her teachers in school-wide planning, development,

Understanding how geographical educators learn in their work 303 management and performance. This role involves considerable interaction with

members of the geography teaching staff, to understand their views in order to advance them in the wider school or community context. For example, justification of the expenditure on fieldwork within a school’s budget may necessitate the subject co-ordinator developing and making a strong case that has been empow- ered by the whole geography teaching team.

As executive member of a professional association, e.g. the Geographical Associ- ation, it is often necessary to plead or defend the case for and of geography at times when government policy is changing on aspects of education, e.g. the case for geog- raphy as a core subject in the UK school curriculum. Geographical educators, sometime with expert advice, learn how to defend and promote their subject against any adverse changes. The advocacy exercised by geographical educators in relevant curriculum committees is more one of their professional area based on their own experiences in it. Such advocacy in curriculum development stems from the successes and failures of these educators in their own teaching, their philosophy of geography and education, and their discussions with colleagues on the best way to approach a proposed change.

x Learning through formal training

All geographical educators will have experienced formal training prior to beginning their professional lives. They were educated and trained to become geography teachers or university tutors. Many of these educators accept the challenge to upgrade their qualifications by undertaking further formal training, and have received higher university awards. Additionally, they attend, largely in their own time, a range of specially designed programmes organised by local education authorities and professional associations. These experiences were all selected to promote professional learning in geography and education. They continue to be the accepted, credentialed pathway for becoming a geographical educator. However, once people become geographical educators, then formal training becomes less significant as a means of learning in one’s work.

xi Learning through quality assurance

The concept of quality assurance can be applied to geographical educators in a general way since one of their professional goals is to improve themselves as educa- tors and to improve the learning that they facilitate. The aspect of learning which is evident here occurs through their reflection on their performance, discussing its positive and negative aspects and making decisions on ways to improve it. Such a reflective process can be very instructive if the geographical educators know what criteria they need to make judgements about their professional performance, e.g. effectiveness of their teaching, relevance of the learning that they promote to the students’ lives, willingness to change to accommodate recent developments and ability to operate in an educational team.

304 Teaching Geography in secondary schools