Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

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