Through the eyes of young observers – Geographers imagine, image and create futures

Margaret Robertson

Professor of EducationLa Trobe University, Melbourne

Annual conference, July 2012

The Olympic Magic

Tweets; Blogs; FacebookIphone; GIS??; Pics etc etc

The Formal Context – three aligned (?) mantras

• The Australian Curriculum – Geography. See Australia n Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority

• Professional standards for accomplished school geography teaching See http://www.geogstandards.edu.au/

This project was partly funded through an Australian Research Council Linkages grant. It is an initiative of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne; Australian Geography Teachers' Association (AGTA) ; Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria (GTAV) ; Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT)

• Geographers’ capabilities (Bachelor’s degree). See https://www.iag.org.au/about-geography/geographers-capabilities/ These Threshold Learning Outcomes were endorsed in November 2010 by the: Australian Academy of Science’s National Committee for Geography, Australian Geography Teachers’ Association, Geographical Society of New South Wales, Institute of Australian Geographers, Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, and Royal Geographical Society of South Australia.

The ‘real world’Geography and the world of work

• For reference see the Report on the Spatial industry at http://www.agta.asn.au/news/other/spatial_industry_report.pdf

• Consider the workforce tiers: - industry, trades, professions, and….

• Highlights the commodification of GIS or photogrammetry or geoinformatics in everyday life.

• Everybody ‘trades’ in geospatial data!!

Our challenge – joining the dots for students, policy makers and schooling

The dilemma

What stays?• All the old concepts of

knowing, thinking, and doing remain– Space and place– Distributions and patterns– Interconnectedness – Mapping– Planning– Fieldwork– Questioning and discovering

What’s changed?• The concepts are the same,

but….• Our tools have turned labours

of love and endless hours of hand drawing, recording and processing into instant sources of ‘endpoints’; ‘products’; ‘outcomes’.

• AND, kids are our best trainers to ‘get good’ with them – if we let them!! However….history is important for pointing the way

1675? The Orient

Nicola Bailleul le Jeune, 1750

Hollandia Nova detecta 1644 ; Terre Australe decouuerte l'an 1644

Geography ‘Matters’ Early charts

7

8

Indigenous landscape artists

9

Colonial artist’s view of the indigenous landscape – painting by John Glover of Tasmanian Aborigines - 1837

10

Olegas Truchanas – explorer, photographer inspirational leader of the conservation literature and wilderness ethic (1923-72). A passionate advocate for the beauty, rarity and unique features of nature. A ‘new’ landscape aesthetic – the home of the ‘Greens’!

Lake Pedder, 1960s

11

12

1937

Tokyo earthquake, 1923

13

..geography is seen as having moved from a catalogue of facts about the earth’s surface to a reasoned description of the influence of physical factors on human activities and more recently to a science of spatial correlations, i.e. the study of relationships between difference distributions on the earth’s surface. (Graves, 1972, p.18)

Recent past...predicting our times

14

East meets West in 2010via satellite imagery

15

From this…

To this…

16

From

This in 1996 – Land Use UK project To this in 2009

So what are the ‘threats’?

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=lake+eyre&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=GwqmT6mwIOiaiAesqryiAw&sqi=2&ved=0CNMBELAE&biw=1400&bih=884

Pandora/s …worlds.

Helmut’s world - Parkour

‘Modern Geography’• Borders – redefined: it’s personal, now and immediate• Expeditions – RGS; risk taking• Twitteratterie – short bites• E-democracy – personalised learning – ‘counter geographies’• Energy – personal zest for living, making things happen• Bio-security; well-being and health• Building optimism (anti-pessimism)• Doing versus sitting• Curiosity and wonder for all that’s happening• Updating updating updating eg world bank figures• Anti-stereotypes• Valuing the past….???

  Country 2001 2009 2010-11  

  World 15.6 69.0 78.2  

  Algeria 78.6 92.4  

  Argentina 18.1 128.8 141.8  

  Australia 110.7 100.9  

  Bangladesh 46.2  

  Chile 96.9 116.0  

  China 11.4 56.1 64.2  

  Egypt 87.1  

  Finland 80.5 144.2 144.2  

  Germany 128.9 127.9  

  Japan 58.8 90.1 94.7  

  Korea, Rep. 61.3 98.4 103.9  

  Papua NG 27.8  

  Saudi Arabia 12.0 176.7 187.9  

  Singapore 72.3 133.4 145.5  

  Thailand 103.6  

  UK 78.3 144.2 130.3  

  US 45.1 97.2 90.2  

  Vietnam 1.6 130.0 177.2  

  Yemen 0.8 46.1  

The World Bank – mobile phones per 100 people

The personal tools – ubiquitous!

And, our planet earth…hence the big issues that need our guidance as teachers of geography are..

• Sustainability – what does it mean?• Climate change• Governance – Shifting East.

– The ‘west’ meets Feng Shui • Bio-security• Energy • Mobilities – actual and virtual

– Employment (eg mining industry)• New ‘imaginaries’ or landscape aesthetics for living our

lives. Revaluing nature!

Series editors: John Chi-Kin Lee; Michael Williams and Philip StimpsonSee also Robertson, M. & Lee, J. (2009) From School-based Curriculum to Whole-school Approaches to School Development. In J.Lee & M.Williams (Eds) Schooling for Sustainable Development In China: Experience With Younger Children. Dordrecht: Springer

Building confidence to meet these major societal shifts requires..

• Clear vision of what counts• Resilience to make change happen• Good support networks• Professional development – ongoing• ‘Time out’ to reflect – often• Working collaboratively with colleagues in all disciplines

and• Negotiating pathways for learning – one size does not fit

all!2 projects to illustrate..

http://global-understanding.info/

• Bringing together physical/natural and social sciences• Collaborative projects• Building from local initiatives• Creating opportunities• Sharing resources• Encouraging ‘understanding’…..

A strong multi-discipline focus

Case Study samples from Australia, UK, The Netherlands, Kenya, Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, US, Colombia, Chile

Contributors• Margaret Robertson (La Trobe Uni – Australia and UK)

• Sirpa Tani (University of Helsinki)

• Taina Kaivola and Hannele Rikkinen (Uni. of Helsinki)

• Tene Beneker (Uni. Of Utrecht, The Netherlands)

• Geok Chin Ivy TAN (NIE, Singapore)

• Rex Walford, Molly Warrington and Margaret Robertson (University of Cambridge)

• Sarah Shucksmith and Molly Warrington (Uni. of Cambridge)

• Jeremy Chan (NTNU Taiwan)

• Osvaldo Muniz-Solari and Carmen Brysch (Texas State University)

• Ximena Cortés-Quezada (Universidad de La Serena) and Osvaldo Muniz-Solari

• Ruth Quiroz-Posada (Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin) and Osvaldo Muñiz-Solari

Research Aims

To capture the views and visions that young people (ages 12 years and 15 years) have of the world . [Much of the

information gained relates to free-flowing conversations with volunteer students.]

Gather cross cultural input for comparisons

Attempt to collate these views from diverse cultures and backgrounds

Global themes grounded in situated realities of local communities

• Step 1: personal ‘brainstorm’

Common methodology – modified Delphi technique

ME

GOALS

LEISURE ACTIVITIES

FAMILY

SCHOOL

FAVOURITE PLACES

DREAMS

PUZZLES

OTHER - SELF NOMINATING

• Robertson, M & Gerber, R (2001) Children's Ways of Knowing: Learning Through Experience, Camberwell, Australia, ACER Press.

• Robertson, M & Williams, M (2004) Young People, Leisure and Place: Cross-cultural Perspectives, Hauppauge, N.Y., Nova Science Publishers.

• Robertson, M & Gerber, R (2007) Children's Lifeworlds: Locating Indigenous Voices, New York, Nova Scientific.

• Abbott Chapman, J & Robertson, M (2009) Adolescents' favourite places: redefining the boundaries between private and public space, Space and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp.419-434.

• Robertson, M (2009) Young "netizens" creating public citizenship in cyberspace, International Research in Geographical and Environment Education, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp.287-293.

Background studies

Small group studies – Rural Victoria (Australia)

Step 2: sharing and collating

Step 3: Collating the responses in focus groups

Laura : My first future concern is my job. I’ll be 24 in 2020 and I would like to have made it as an author by then, or at least a reporter for some sort of newspaper or magazine. My next concern diseases. I would want to have my health, friends and families health good.

Claudia : One of my future concerns is probably finding a job that I can earn money from and also one that I will enjoy doing.

Step 4: Presenting their ideas

Singapore

Kenya

Haarlem – The Netherlands

Peterborough - UK

US - Texas

Taiwan

Colombia

Chile

Summary themes – tentative

• Focus on personal ambitions – education, jobs, money and success. At a ‘home’ level they appear optimistic.

• Concerns repeated in all transcripts– Climate change– Global poverty– Drought – Pollution– Health well being – drugs, obesity and violence issues– Technology .......not so much. It IS!!!

• Relationships are fundamental to success

• Local and global must intersect

• The ‘everyday’ requires research, knowledge building and respect

• Communities start from a place – fixed in real space and time OR in virtual space and time

• Young people think and act differently – they have creative ideas and practices that are fundamental to our futures

Educational Outreach and Futures Thinking

54

The role of the individual

and aesthetics in neo-liberal

politics ‘flat’ world

utopianism

The concept of the state;

its curriculum and

mandated outcomes

The relationship

between absolute and

relative space. (eg world city concept)

How we construct new visions in such

contexts?

Can we imagine.....

other places and

space/time relationship

Can we lift ourselves to

embrace liberty?

Can we adapt to change and

promote hope?

Our challenges conceptually are...

55

Towards a new curriculum, from..

The Four Traditions of Geography (Pattison, 1963)

• Spatial tradition• An area studies tradition• A man [sic]-land tradition, and • An earth science tradition.

56

To..a new theoretical approach based on the old and…

Personalised enquiry based learning

Negotiated curriculum and knowledge content

Co-learning with peers and teachers

Fieldwork, discovery and learning by doing

GIS and applications of digital technologies to spatial data analysis

The imperative of tolerance, understanding and cooperation.

Assessment based on geographical reasoning and process

Regular student led reviews and feedback sessions

A focus on humanity and the soul of civilization

Physical

Technology/

GIS

Human

Perceptions of Environments as a complex web of interactions

Refer: Zimmerman, 2010

58

Teaching challenge - helping children to become global citizens. We need

‘smart’ classrooms, fresh thinking and courage.

Time to get on our bikes!

60

…and provide time for learning…perhaps even invent new rules

61

Thank you!