Justifying geography

In the last post we saw that subjects cannot simply appeal to tradition to justify their place on the curriculum. Each subject has, instead, to continually justify its place by examining itself against the set of aims and principles that have been decided in advance as being core to a good education. By doing so, we will not have proved that initiation into the subjects is in fact the best method of education but we will at least have demonstrated that learning a particular subject contributes to our wider educational goals. This is perhaps the best we can hope for.

This process of justification may be easier for some subjects than for others. It is my view that when it comes to geography the justification seems, initially, relatively easy. Not only does it seem intuitively important to understand human and physical worlds and their interconnections, but in addition it is hard to image a time when such an understanding wouldn’t be important for a life worth living. Indeed, we might feasibly conceive of a scenario in which we needed no such understanding, for example, one in which we were all pre-programmed to behave, like robots, in a particular way according to an extrinsic plan. But even in this case, which after all is not too dissimilar to some theological worldviews that have held sway over the centuries, some minimal world knowledge might still seem desirable. Such knowledge might consist of some downloaded information that enabled us to orientate ourselves, perhaps a kind of personal Geographical Information System (GIS) wired into our heads for instance. The important point is that so long as life is considered not to be so controlled, and ourselves to be autonomous beings, some understanding of the physical and human world in which we live out our lives seems essential.

So, our task of justifying geography in the school curriculum seems fairly painless so far. However, no matter how nifty they may be, there is only so far we can get with platitudes such as 'geography helps children to make sense of the world around them'. Our robot friends, in the scenario pictured above, might argue (if beings without autonomy can argue) that they have made sense of their world, at least to their satisfaction. A juxtaposition of previously random lines, arcs and shapes has now, thanks to the wonder of their GIS implants, coalesced into a meaningful grid of reference which means they can get from A to B without endlessly bumping into walls all the time. To such a being this might be all the sense that the world needs. But what do we make to such a minimal model of what sense requires? 'Making sense' seems to need something more than merely knowing coordinates and being able to get from A to B effortlessly. Making sense, and having what we would call an understanding of the world, would seem to embrace more broader considerations such as why those lines, arcs and shapes are positioned as they are. Why are there walls here? Am I excluded from that place, and if so why? What the hell is a place anyway?

The kind of sense or knowledge that satisfies us is to a large degree a reflection of the kind of being we are. Human knowledge is distinct precisely because it asks questions and this alone makes it poles apart from the kind of GIS data that might satisfy a society of commuting robots. Of course, this is not to say that such data might not prove useful when it comes to finding answers for our questions. Before I diverge from the point too far, let me say that all of the preceding argument has been presented to show that justifying the kinds of knowledge that geography proffers is not an easy task and it depends vastly on the sort of being we are and the kinds of aims we have. We are humans first of all, with human bodies and human desires and ambitions that are unlikely to be fully satisfied by data transmitted into our heads. Our aims are invariably contested, but most of us think that leading some sort of fulfilling human life, however that may be defined, is desirable. Educational aims for young people usually make reference to this aim as well as to the aim that they should become responsible citizens who care about other humans. Our aims are intrinsically human, and pre-programmed robots would care little for them.

Particular subjects, along with the knowledge and skills they convey, must be justified in so far as they contribute to meeting these very human aims. Imagine that someone has come along and demanded to know why geography should not be replaced by 'GIS skills' for, after all, we do live in the 21st century and such skills are of paramount importance. We would have to have recourse to aims, and not just any old aims either. We are humans and not pre-programmed beings whose sole purpose is to get ourselves or our commodities from A to B with maximum efficiency. For sure, the notion of efficiency has taken on a huge importance in recent times, but when we take stock, it rarely comes out at the top of our lists of what the good life entails. I claim that such an aim does not suit us. A subject called 'GIS skills' could not self justify itself without reference to a broader subject that did meet that our human need for understanding and making sense of the hows, whys and wherefores of the world. We can make a good case that such a subject is the one that goes by the name of geography. This is a subject that makes sense of the world, but it 'makes sense' in a very human way.

As we have seen, justifying is not always an easy task, and the extent to which any aspect of geography, from GIS to glaciers, contributes to the educational aims we have set for ourselves is largely a matter for serious research and not for conjecture. In fact, educational research that does not take into account and engage with such aims is likely to be rather meaningless in the long run. Discovering the best ways to teach about 'place' or 'GIS' will tell us little about why learning these things are important to ourselves as human beings living in a world along with others. As a final point, it seems to me that any notion of education without aims is ultimately futile.