Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

5. The principle of usefulness has become one of the criteria in the selection ofcontent. Exposed are real problems from various areas of life. Special meaning hasbeen given to explaining mechanisms of contemporary world economy, processesof the development of societies, as well as their demographic and political problems.The contents from the fields of tourism and recreation have been ascribedhigher rank, both in the scale of the country and that of the world.6. The knowledge of how the “man-environment” system functions has been broadened.The socio-economic phenomena and processes are shown in relation to natural conditions.A lot of space is also devoted to presenting their consequences to nature.7. At all levels of education geographical content has been connected to regionaleducation, understood as teaching about the region where the pupils/studentslive.8. Among skills, the ability to use various sources of geographical information (suchas maps, plans, statistical yearbooks, different types of pictures, internet, GIS,and others), holds an important position.On the whole, contemporary geographical education in the Polish schools has gotrid of factual knowledge. Its goal is to help understand the phenomena and processesoccurring in the environment of human life in various places of the earth.Preparing geography teachers for the realisation of education tasksThe theoretical assumptions adopted make school geography a subject of significantsocial usefulness. At the same time, its new character sets high demands for teachers.Their professional preparation calls for a wide range of methodological competence,but also complementary and topical knowledge about the environment, as well asabout various forms of human activity in the environment.Training of geography teachers takes place in thirteen academic centres in Polandconducting geography studies. Pedagogical preparation follows the Ministry ofEducation standards that give specifications for the set of compulsory subjects ofthe field, the hour limits for teaching, and the general outline of the content. But thesubject-matter preparation of geography teachers is not regulated by official documents,and is carried out differently in each of the centres, depending on its researchparadigm and its tradition and expertise. The only common kernel for all the schoolsof higher education are the basic curricular requirements specified by the Ministryof Education, that regulate the set of basic subjects, obligatory for geography studies,with an outline of their contents.The pedagogical preparation of geography teachers is basically the same as thatof other subject teachers. During the uniform MA studies they are obligated to thetotal of 480 hours of training, spread over minimum two years of studies. The blockconsists of the following subjects:• psychology and pedagogy – the total of 150 hours• didactics of geography – 120 hours• geography teaching practice in various types of schools – 150 hours• voice practice – 30 hours68