Earthview bridgewater state9/21/2023 ![]() As recently as the day before my presentation, they were explaining exactly why it was effective and what kinds of lessons their students were drawing from it.ģ. Teachers - excellent teachers - keep requesting this program. In fact, such standards are themselves only valid to the extent that qualified scholars have developed them.Ģ. We need to have more faith in the educational process. This does not mean everything I teach is equally successful, but it does mean that I have been thoroughly vetted by my peers and I am able to discern what is working and what is not. That is all the validation my lessons need. Like the questioner, I am a tenured full professor of geography. ![]() My reply was to sputter a bit and eventually to mention a few ways in which we had done some of this kind of "assessment," but not to make clear why this is exactly the wrong question. He said, however, that the National Geographic's use of "entertaining and educational" for such giant-map programs was not supported by evidence, and he asked whether I had set up pre- and post-program surveys to document the educational benefit in terms of student learning on specific learning standards. The question was a bit surprising because it came from a fellow professor with decades of teaching experience who has used many of the same resources I described, in many of the same ways. To be honest, Diderot thought of one perfect answer (hence his use of "wit" rather than "spirit"), whereas I thought of one and then another and another as I brooded over this a bit. This work leads to conversations about a modern geography that no longer promotes rote memorization and a colonial worldview, but rather serves as a positive force for equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice.Īfter this presentation - in which I thought I conveyed both the need for and value of our outreach programs with some panache - I found myself in the position of the philosopher Diderot, who coined this term, meaning "wit of the staircase." I originally learned it as "angel of the staircase," which I still prefer.Īs with Diderot in the original story, I was caught off-guard by a question that I have heard before but do not consider central to the spirit of the presentation itself, and like Diderot, right after the session I thought of a better answer. The visits to schools often attract positive attention from parents, media and political leaders. ![]() Sustained outreach of this kind requires significant effort, but brings significant rewards to a department, a university, and the surrounding region. ![]() The work has given the faculty members and participating undergraduate assistants deep insights into the diverse communities of our region, while helping middle-school students and their teachers better understand their connections to the wider world. This paper describes educational outreach programs through which geography faculty at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts have worked directly with thousands of students and dozens of teachers each year since 2008. Introductory university courses in geography now often include remediation for geographic learning that was once part of K-12 education. The social studies curricula that emerged as a result have lacked spatial perspectives, and geographic illiteracy has become rampant. Abstract (a summary of what I planned to hope to say)Īs it was taught in mid-twentieth century schools in the United States, geography was so pedantic in its approach and so narrow in its worldview that it was considered progressive to get rid of it. ![]()
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