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schools is the result of the role educators are assuming in teaching geography aswell as the attitudes they adapt towards the subject matter of their teaching. Thisof course should not be surprising, since the overwhelming majority of educators,both in primary and secondary schools, have acquired their knowledge of geographymainly from relevant courses they had taken themselves as students during theirhigh school education. More specifically, it was found that 92,9% of primary schoolgeography teachers and 95% of high school geography teachers during their collegeeducation were not taught any Geography courses or they were inadequately exposedto Geography (subject matter, materials and teaching methods).Based on these facts it was deemed particularly important as well as extremelyinteresting to examine the attitudes and points of view of educators teaching geographytowards their subject both in primary and secondary schools. This researchattempts to identify the issues that affect the educators’ attitude towards the subject ofgeography. To this end, 155 geography teachers of primary schools and 80 geographyhigh school teachers, from the greater Athens area, were provided with questionnairescontaining “open-ended” type questions. The characteristics of the chosensample (their composition in terms of sex, age, experience, specialty etc) closelyresembled the national average, creating a statistically credible sample to workwith. As for the questionnaires they contained both positive and negative questions(e.g. “I like teaching geography because…” and “I do not like teaching geographybecause…” or “The subject of geography is essential to students because…” etc), aswell as other more general questions (e.g. “When you say that an educator teachesgeography “properly”, you mean that…” or “When you say that an educator has agood command of geography, you mean that…” etc) etc. The processing of theseanswers led to the formation of a “map” of answers reflecting the attitudes and pointsof view of educators regarding geography teaching as well as the image projectedby the educators themselves.In addition, the questionnaire results were analysed using the “SPSS 10” statisticalpackage for Windows, in order to investigate whether factors such as sex and yearsof service have an effect upon the attitude and points of view of educators regardingteaching of geography. Finally, one-way ANOVA was utilized in order to discover anydifferentiations among various groups of educators. For this purpose, the followingtwo major groups were established: primary and high school geography teachers.ResultsThe results were categorized into four sections and are presented separately. Thefirst section is related to the teachers’ point of view regarding the subject matter ofgeography and their attitudes.The results show that the overwhelming majority of both the primary and highschool teachers believe that the subject of geography repels students (83,9% and98,75% respectively) because of four common reasons (the required memorising offacts, the difficulty of the subject matter, the inadequate or incorrect teaching andinappropriate educational materials).152
The interesting thing, however, regarding these results is that whereas there is not astatistically significant difference in the view that geography repels students, primaryand high school teachers differ significantly in their justifications of the reasons thatlead to this result. More specifically, the primary school teachers believe that the mainreason is that memorising is required, an opinion that indicates that they have not putthe effort to familiarize themselves with the spirit and rationale of the new curriculaand the changes that they have been brought to the teaching of Geography (methodof teaching, aims, etc); on the other hand, the high school teachers believe that thelack of educational materials is the main reason, thus shifting responsibility to theMinistry of Education for not providing schools with the appropriate resources.These responses should not be surprising given that educators from both theprimary and secondary schools believe that an educator has a good command ofgeography when he has knowledge of the countries and continents (49,1% and 60%respectively), knows how to “read” and use maps (24,5% and 12,5%) and, of course,employs the appropriate teaching methodology and educational materials (16,1%and 18,75%).It should be noted, however, that although both groups reckon that knowledgeplays the most significant role in the subject of geography, there is a statisticallysignificant difference between primary and high school teachers in terms of therole of teaching methodology. That is, primary teachers are more sensitised towardsthis issue as compared to the high school teachers who claim that if you know thesubject’s material, you can actually teach it well.The second section of the questionnaire has been concerned with the subject ofgeography at school. The two questions concerned with the answers of the educators’points of view and their justification as to whether the subject of geography is essentialto students and, therefore, should be taught at schools showed the following:There is absolute agreement between the two groups of teachers, since almost 90%of them believe that geography must be taught at schools. However, in terms of thereasons for which they believe that geography must be taught as well as what exactlyit is that students should learn, there is a difference of opinion. That is, primary schoolteachers believe that geography should be taught so that children will learn aboutthe world as well as their country, whereas secondary teachers believe that studentsshould learn simply how to use maps.There was a statistically significant difference between primary and high schoolteachers in the following question: “What do you mean when you say that an educatorteaches geography properly”. The majority of the primary teachers posed four mainprerequisites: first, to trigger the students’ interest (23.2%), second, to know thesubject-matter (21.3%), third, to use maps and other educational materials (20,6%)and, finally, to be able to communicate knowledge effectively (15,5%). On thecontrary, high school teachers believe that the first and foremost factor in order toclaim that somebody teaches geography properly is to use maps and other educationalmaterials (46,5%) and, of course, to know the subject-matter (27,5%).The third section was concerned with the actual teaching of the subject of geography.The answers to the questions of this section show:153
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Changing Horizons inGeography Educa
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ContributorsAnouk AdangFaculty of G
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Margaret C. KeaneSt Mary’s Univer
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Artur ReligaDepartment of Geography
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Contents1. Exciting Geography......
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Barbara Katharina Mayerhofer, Teach
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How to design and implement excitin
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only increase their motivation to l
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Ministry of Education. Having in mi
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eEurope and the Bologna agendaIn hi
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The main learning approachesencoura
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as a vibrant exciting subject at un
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include ICT as part of the educatio
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19. RICHARDSON J. A. 2001. Collabor
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class using identical instructions
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ability to hold and move a load is
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the range of practical activities.
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Multimedia learning of geographical
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• an organizer and manager of a l
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Geographical fieldwork in forestsJa
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One of these field study laboratori
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learning“, to develop and then in
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egin). It is referred to the inter-
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overruled by the judge and some sus
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esses or their reciprocal relations
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formulated one of key principles in
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Dress rehearsalHow should a present
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of the world, but multiple maps of
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focused on landscape, climate, popu
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ments in academic geography, could
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Training geography teachers in Pola
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a series of intellectual as well as
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• optional subject (30 hours) use
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of the lower levels of education. H
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• the one-subject model: the cont
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delivery, and the methods of the pa
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• Pathways signal important tasks
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Geography competitions as stimuli f
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Figure 1. Changes in the structure
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Challenges for the futureNowadays t
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A perspective from the United State
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The process of GIS inquiry - Thinki
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Remote Sensing in Geography Educati
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IntroductionThe Democratic Republic
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images visualise the “tree vegeta
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PART TWOProfessional Developmentand
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Key elements of an introductory stu
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Some textbooks also provide self-le
Page 102 and 103: Geography programs and BolognaThere
Page 104 and 105: equirements. In the faculties of Ar
Page 106 and 107: Even though this only is a short an
Page 108 and 109: Background of international student
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Page 112 and 113: International collaboration in dist
Page 114 and 115: Designing and teaching the distance
Page 116 and 117: audio lectures - one for presenting
Page 118 and 119: enrolled in geography courses at po
Page 120 and 121: development experience. Whilst Craf
Page 122 and 123: Networking and social diffusion of
Page 124 and 125: is mistreated, the culture is a-cul
Page 126 and 127: 3. ABALAR. 2004. “Editorial”, i
Page 128 and 129: to gather process and store spatial
Page 130 and 131: 1. Fundamental to understanding GIS
Page 132 and 133: The Future of Geography and Geograp
Page 134 and 135: of geography. In Singapore Social S
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Page 138 and 139: the handful of disciplines that has
Page 140 and 141: and respected and the institutional
Page 142 and 143: 3. The strength of school and unive
Page 144 and 145: It is quite clear that Vidal de la
Page 146 and 147: Effective Practices in Distance Edu
Page 148 and 149: on to the other satellite school. O
Page 150 and 151: 4. Ministry of Education. 1999. The
Page 154 and 155: • A statistically significant dif
Page 156 and 157: Charles University geography gradua
Page 158 and 159: Table 1. First job in studied field
Page 160 and 161: importance in geography study progr
Page 162 and 163: The Anglo-Saxon model was collectiv
Page 164 and 165: academic science. I do believe that
Page 166 and 167: can convene. Details of these modul
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Page 170 and 171: The assessment must form the basis
Page 172 and 173: The teaching shall build on the pup
Page 174 and 175: The Relationship between Geography
Page 176 and 177: Geography and Territory Planning ha
Page 178 and 179: we wished, of course we have obtain
Page 180 and 181: Why Managers from Multinational Com
Page 182 and 183: able to have training in different
Page 184 and 185: ContextUtrecht University is a larg
Page 186 and 187: Typical is the very open atmosphere
Page 188 and 189: Times of Change for Geography Educa
Page 190 and 191: where it is divided into specific b
Page 192 and 193: • traditional versus progressive
Page 194 and 195: on European Dimension of Teaching g
Page 196 and 197: With the ongoing development of tel
Page 198 and 199: Figure 2. Present at Annual Congres
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An evaluation of geographyand geogr
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The problems of geography and geogr
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Europe in geographical education -
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Then these results were compared to
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Figure 9. Countries mentioned by th
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Internationalizing geography in hig
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nationalize their undergraduate and
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Groups also focus on international
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The Position of Geography Graduates
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have also affected the number ofGeo
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The majority answered that they wou
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In the Primary school curriculum, G
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the efficacy of the teaching and le
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228
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What Europe do we teach?A view from
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The regional approach is used in on
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The syllabi reflect mainly that the
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Geography Forum: Intercultural Lear
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Was Intercultural Competence promot
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of geographical education in our un
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Higher education (University) as a
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This table shows the importance of
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the studies on what exists, to cons
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248taught in the foreign language e
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as K. De Bot calls it, is a variety
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Do you speak European? or: Why even
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Years’ Religious War in the 17 th
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Why geographers should be able to s
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Intercultural education in Italian
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of geography in the process of inte
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9. BRUSA C., ed. 2002. Processi di
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Nowadays, according to the literatu
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In the gymnasium and in high school
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3. Dziennik Ustaw nr 61 z dnia 19 c
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Crick advocates these principles by
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dropping litter. There is circle ti
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and learning. Kerala is an exporter
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The role of geographical education
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ole: they form attitudes, views, pr
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Field lessons can engage the pupil
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to explore regional issues when tea
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Some backgroundFor a number of year
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issues that will shape the future g
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Geography and Environmental Science
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(2000) cautioned an awareness of cu
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Geography and Languages in Intercul
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Table 1. The most widely taught for
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the whole world will, according to
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References1. CALVET L. J. 2002. Le
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Sustainable development: let geogra
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predecessor “green,” or the pre
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8. GUNN A. S., “Professional Ethi
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Much research in Environmental Educ
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Sustainability, Development and Sec
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includes geography. The context is,
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• protected areas8. Landscape sec
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Developing geographical professiona
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tion contributes to the growth of e
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cooperative learning using as theor
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Studyng climate and water resources
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By signing and ratifying the Kyoto
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and political implications of plann
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8. UNITED NATIONS 1997. Kyoto Proto
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Conference Changing Horizons in Geo
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