Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

geography helps them to formulate questions, develop their intellectual
skills and respond to issues affecting their lives. It introduces them not
only to key 21 st century skills but also to distinctive investigative tools
such as maps, fieldwork and the use of powerful digital communication
technologies (IGU-CGE, 2016, p. 5).
This relationship between geography and other social sciences has not received
sufficient attention in curriculum development. Drawing on John Dewey,
Gaudelli and Heilman (2009) argue that conventional pedagogical approaches to
geography are inadequate, particularly at a time when we face global challenges
that require geographic knowledge and insight. UNESCO’s concern for promoting
learning about and for sustainable development will need strong support from
geography teaching, but conventional instructional approaches are of doubtful
use in this respect.
Across much of Asia, syllabi and textbooks for geography (as for related subjects
such as history) tend to be highly cluttered with content knowledge, most
of it purely informational. In the final three years of basic schooling, children
throughout South Asia, for example, are required to assimilate densely packed
gobbets of factual detail concerning the regional geography of different
continents and their own country. This exposure to global geography forms the
conventional content of geographical knowledge. Though some introduction to
the essentials of global geography is needed, studies of children’s socio-cognitive
development underline the importance of encouraging them to explore and
document the geography of their local region (Makiguchi, 1908/2002). This means
on the one hand acknowledging the need to inculcate procedural knowledge (for
example, how to conduct an investigation or how to make a simple map), while
also building the kind of ‘geographical perspective’ called for in the International
Charter on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE, 2016). This implies ‘learning to
think as a geographer’ (what will I look for in my local context?) rather than simply
imbibing a remote and abstract body of authorised knowledge (Lambert, 2004;
GA, 2009; Reinfried and Hertig, 2011).
Officially-mandated curricula often persist in ignoring the potential of local
geography as an object of study, perhaps because highly centralised production
of textbooks and systems of public assessment militate against locally rooted
approaches to learning. Such approaches to teaching geography also imply a
change in the role of the teacher, and thus also in approaches to teacher training.
Systemic constrains of this kind will have to be overcome in order to enable a
focus on local exploration and observation; hands-on experience; representation
through mapping; and critical reflection on the relationship between landforms,
climate and human activity. All this requires substantial curricular reorganisation,
rather than mechanical insertion of new topics. It also means striking an
appropriate balance between privileging exploration of the local context, and
heightening students’ awareness and understanding of the wider world — in
such a way that one goal reinforces the other. In both conceptual and technical
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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