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Geographic awareness needed

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Landslide

Landslide

Well-Known Member
I came across this news, and I have to say I'm in shock...

Specially with this part:
The United States remains one of the few advanced societies where it is possible for most citizens to move from kindergarten to postgraduate life without any exposure to geography as an analytical science.
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So geography is never a mandatory subject at school in the United States?
 
It is not a requirement to graduate from a public school in Kansas. My daughter's Current Events teacher devotes one day per week to pure geography, but has the students refer to classroom atlases whenever a news item is discussed. Many homeschoolers operate this way as well, but we can purchase curricula for geography for many different grade levels. Abeka and Bob Jones both have highschool textbooks and workbooks to give a thorough coverage of the subject. For great ideas for all ages there's a great website geared towards home educators, called Geography Matters.
 
sparkchaser said:
Generally speaking, yes that is correct. I had one Geography class and it was in 7th grade.
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So, in which subject, if any, is approached the geography of the country?

ABC, that site looked very interesting. I found the Bible Geography part a great idea, cause the places refered in it are real, so it's a great way to learn geography. From your comment I take it that whether or not to teach geography is really a decision for the teacher. Is that right?
 
Landslide said:
ABC, that site looked very interesting. I found the Bible Geography part a great idea, cause the places refered in it are real, so it's a great way to learn geography. From your comment I take it that whether or not to teach geography is really a decision for the teacher. Is that right?
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I'm not sure about the public schools, but I think a lot is left to the individual school boards, administrators, and faculty. There is a Geography course in our local High School Syllabus, but it is an elective, not a requirement. Many home educators choose to incorporate geography studies into their schedules, because it can be done so readily, just by referring to maps and atlases as discussions arise.
 
Thanks for clearing this up for me, guys. I had forgotten that schools had autonomy in the United States. In Portugal there is a national curriculum that all public schools have to follow. I still think it would be important to have Geography as a mandatory subject at least for one year, so that students could at least learn the basics...
 
So geography is never a mandatory subject at school in the United States?
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Generally, yes. It depends on the district and state that you are in. In the school district that I taught in, it was an elective. You could either take geography, or two semesters of world history. My school only required three years of social studies. I didn't agree with that, but we had a strong vocational ed. program. In a farming community, FFA, "school to work" and welding were virewed as being more important.
 
abecedarian said:
Many home educators choose to incorporate geography studies into their schedules, because it can be done so readily, just by referring to maps and atlases as discussions arise.
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You do know that geography covers so much more than looking at maps and knowing where in the world a country is? When I was at school (at around 11 to fourteen) we were covering topics such as the different spheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, etc.), types of soil, formation of glacial features, meteorology (measuring weather, the Coriolis effect, climate change etc) as well as urban geography which looks at demographics, population distribution, and so on.
 
Stewart said:
You do know that geography covers so much more than looking at maps and knowing where in the world a country is? When I was at school (at around 11 to fourteen) we were covering topics such as the different spheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, etc.), types of soil, formation of glacial features, meteorology (measuring weather, the Coriolis effect, climate change etc) as well as urban geography which looks at demographics, population distribution, and so on.
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Exactly! But realising that it's so poorly taught (I'm sorry if I'm being unfair, but it's the impression I got) I would be happy if students at least knew the basics such as reading a map and being able to at least correspond a country to the right region of the globe.
 
Stewart said:
You do know that geography covers so much more than looking at maps and knowing where in the world a country is? When I was at school (at around 11 to fourteen) we were covering topics such as the different spheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, etc.), types of soil, formation of glacial features, meteorology (measuring weather, the Coriolis effect, climate change etc) as well as urban geography which looks at demographics, population distribution, and so on.
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True, we covered that in our elementary school 'social studies' books. It just wasn't a separate course. For my kids, I've relied on library books to cover some of these topics. There's lots of well written books for the 9-12 year old market. The library and netflix also have plenty of documentaries to help in this area too.
 
Landslide said:
Exactly! But realising that it's so poorly taught (I'm sorry if I'm being unfair, but it's the impression I got)
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It is a fair statement if by being poorly taught you mean that it is mostly neglected by school districts to begin with and that it is not the presentation by teachers that is affecting students' understanding of the topic. My experience in Washington has been that along with civics geography has been incorporated into social studies/history classes and watered way, way down because of it.
 
It's been my experience that you're lucky if you can get an American to locate their home state on a map.
 
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