A Different View: Your View
We anticipate a range of reactions and responses to A Different View: a manifesto from the Geographical Association. We would like you to share your views, and to tell us how you are using, or are going to use, A Different View in all of its forms.
We are interested in:
a) Examples of how it has been used and the reaction it has provoked
b) Your own reflections, including critical reflections, on the text and images
c) How it could be developed in the future
You can post your comments on the following form. We hope to publish some of the responses we receive on this page, so do let us know if you are happy for us to use yours.
Alternatively, you can email Ricky Buck with your comments.
Press Coverage
'A Different View' (SecEd, 14.05.09)
'Bid to put geography back on curriculum map' (TES, 24.04.09)
'Manifesto launched to stop decline in geography' (SecEd, 23.04.09)
Your Comments
Geography as a subject has to do with interactions among different components of the environments. A different view is an approach to help students understand basic concepts in the course of teaching geography in secondary school. It is a plus to both the teachers and students who are learning to become a spatial analyst.
Awoyemi Olayinka Benjamin
17 July 2009
I have now used quite a few of the photos on the A Different View website to make a PowerPoint starter for my Year 12s to get them thinking about big issues.
We found out about A Different View courtesy of one of Marjon’s PGCE students who went to the GA conference at Easter and then fed back to the Plymouth secondary network last week - a great way of spreading the news!
Pat Frean
20 May 2009
A Different View is doing a great job of raising Geography's profile, so let's keep at it. We have recruited more GCSE and more A-level students this year than for quite a long time. I think we have even outdone History at both Key Stages and that is unprecedented in our school. We are so excited about the new GCSE and A-level courses so it is easy to be passionate at open evenings - and A Different View will certainly help us communicate this passion.
The Secondary Geography Network in Plymouth is thriving with most schools sending someone along to meetings and we are collaborating with planning and resourcing the new courses so it is all feeling very positive. We tried to convince the 'powers that be' that geographers should be allowed to run their own geography themed day again on the Plymouth PASH day, as we have done in years past. We haven't won the argument this year but we are pretty determined that we will get there next year. A session on A Different View would go down very well.
Keep getting geography into the papers!
Pat Frean
8 May 2009
There are strong pedagogical reasons for teaching a subject from the known, the familiar and the local, and geography is clearly no exception. The familiar gives pupils a sense of ownership which encourages and supports their learning, but in many of our schools nowadays we have pupils with very different senses of what is familiar and local.
Coming back to teaching geography after decades away and a lot of travelling, I am aghast at how parochial our curriculum is. Geography is supposed to be about the world but the subtext in school geography down every vector of teaching, whether it is fluvial landscapes or settlement patterns, is this is the UK. Unless we explicitly state otherwise everything our curriculum deals with defaults to the UK.
How does this resonate with pupils who are nurtured with loyalties to other countries where domestic dialogue is routed elsewhere and whose life experiences are very foreign? Pupils who come from islands in the Caribbean which are made of limestone struggling to learn about Karst scenery in Derbyshire, a 'county' they have never heard of.
How are we capitalising on their experience in our lessons, how are we valorising their prior leaning and out-of-class geographies? Could this help to account for the appallingly low representation of ethnic minorities in the teaching of our world subject, in our Geography departments, our field studies centres and our professional bodies?
Ian Pawlby
April 2009
I have just returned from a Brighton and Hove Network Meeting where A Different View was on the agenda for the day.
A key idea was to share the DVD with students at maybe the start of Year 7, a Year 6-7 taster lesson and also at the start of GCSE as well as to have it running in the background of Parents Evening.
Teachers liked the fresh approach, images and related activities and the images would make excellent classroom and corridor displays as they are so gripping.
Sime teachers will trial the activities and incorporate into Schemes of Work, others like myself felt that the headings could be a great promotional tool for interdisciplinary curriculum days. Being in a Catholic school 'Between Heaven and Earth' has inspired some deeper thinking about Geography/RE links.
The movie clip will also promote ideas for students and what they like/ dislike about geography topics - student voice.
On a CPD note, many teachers thought about engaging with the Action Plan for Geography and were also unaware despite us trying very hard to promote the sheer wealth of resources on the RGS, GA and GTT websites!
Here's to the promotion of Geography on the South Coast!
Graham Goldup
30 April 2009
A Different View has been produced and funded by the Geographical Association. The GA maintains its independence through the support of its members, whose subscriptions provide the GA's core funding and who give the GA its authority to speak for geography and its role in schools. If you are not already a member of the GA, you can join online now. We need your support!
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