Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

and Humanities. Five of the teachers also declared their origin as primary teachers.Until 1992, teachers were able to work in Secondary Schools after a two year postgraduatecourse with specialisation in for example History, Geography, Psychology,Pedagogy and Philology. This possibility was removed after the Reform of 1992.Their average teaching experience is 12 years. The positive attitude towards attendanceat in-service activities was found in only the 35% of the sample and most ofthese (90%) had attended only one in-service course during their whole professionalcareer and 60% of the courses done were not related to Geography. At the same time,65% of them declared that they had not introduced relevant changes in the curriculumtaught in their classes, not even those related to ICT (Information and CommunicationsTechnologies). This is of special significance since the Spanish school nationalcurriculum has been reformed twice in the last 20 years. The rest of the teachers saidthat they had introduced some changes, especially those concerning environmentaland regional studies aspects.The second part of the questionnaire was addressed to find out the main competenceschosen by teachers as objectives in their course work. They were given fourpossibilities and the results show the competences which can be considered to be themost geographical. The competence “understanding of spatial relations at differentscales” was only chosen with the highest marks by 55% of teachers; on the other hand,the competence “to look for and to analyse geographical information”, was markedas most important by 70% of respondents. The most preferred competences were“to understand the diversity and interdependence of places” and “ability to observeand interpret geographical phenomena” which were marked by 80% of teachers withthe maximum score (5 or 6).The most important topics in geography lessons, were, from the teachers’ point ofview, those related to World Systems and Human Systems, which had been markedby more than 80% of the sample, in the range 5 and 6. In second place, Europe, ourcountry, Globalisation and Diversity were choices pointed also in the 71−75% of theanswers. After this, Environment and Places and Regions appeared with highestscores in 70% of the enquiries. The design and study of maps is placed in the middlerange, appearing only in a 65% of the answers and 25% of the teachers consideredthis question to be of a very low importance, whereas only 2% were not interestedin environmental questions. These findings should probably be interpreted, takinginto account the profiles of the teachers. The most basic and specific geographicalknowledge is not considered as fundamental in the answers of the survey; perhapsthe training profile of the teachers could provide an initial explanation.The least interesting topics in teachers opinions are, Physical Systems and thequestions related to Citizenship and conflict, which are considered only in half ofthe answers. These are relatively new fields for teachers, there probably needs to besome additional professional training.It was decided to look at the instruments used in the geography classroom as anindirect way of approaching the teacher’s work, their abilities and skills. This provedto be a very helpful instrument in the understanding of what was happening in theclassroom. The use of resources is strongly related to the objectives of teaching and225