Geographical Association

This section relates a few teaching and learning ideas to the important curriculum making concerns of progression and assessment. They are not presented as a sequence of lessons plans and, consciously, raise areas of interest to challenge or extend the conventional notion of 'settlement'.


The landscape of risk

'The evaluation of everything from a perspective of risk is a defining characteristic of contemporary society. Risk is the managerial paradigm and default mechanism that has embedded itself into how companies, community organisations and the public sector operate. Risk is a prism through which any activity is judged...

It subtly encourages us to constrain aspirations, act with over-caution, avoid challenges and be sceptical about innovation. It narrows our world into a defensive shell. The life of a community self-consciously concerned with risk and safety is different from one focused on discovery and exploration.'

Landry, C. (no date) 'Risk and the creation of liveable cities' in What are we scared of? The value of risk in designing public space, London: CABE.

Landry also makes his views on cars clear:

'The consequences of policies, applied over many decades, that have privileged cars and the people in them above local public transport, cyclists and people on foot, have been profound. The use of local public-transport services has declined by more than 50 per cent in the past 50 years. Cycling and walking have declined by at least as much, only partly because former cyclists and pedestrians have switched to cars. As the amount of metal in motion has increased, those with softer, more vulnerable shells have retreated before the threat.'

As does the Association of British Drivers:

'The ABD is run entirely on a voluntary basis by its members. We urgently need your help to fund our campaigning against the tide of anti-car hysteria and driver persecution sweeping Britain.

There are 33 million driving licence holders in the UK

That's a majority in any maths book. Why then does our democratically elected government harang drivers with a never ending stream of taxes, legislation, restrictions and threats? Why don't more drivers stand up for their rights?

Answer: Because drivers are also bombarded with a never ending stream of propaganda which seeks to convince them that cars are bad for them, for everybody else, and for the planet, and that anyone who dares to say cars are good is in fact a nasty child-killing, planet-destroying ogre.

If you have had enough of government bullying, and are capable of seeing past all this propaganda, read on... '

Source: www.abd.org.uk/itp.htm (accessed July 2007)


Now do Activity 8 >>>

This project is run in partnership with the Academy for Sustainable Communities