History and Geography Meme #135: Using Non-Textbooks for Geography Studies
Geography As It's Usually Taught
"How is geography usually taught? The child has to memorize the capital cities of Europe, or the rivers of England, or the names of mountains in Scotland, from some miserably dull textbook. He has to learn how many miles long, or feet high, or population count, or find the names on his map, whatever his teacher assigns. Poor child! His lesson is difficult, but is it educating him? Is it developing his mental power or broadening his mind? No, he'd learn more by watching a fly walk up a window. But someone might argue, geography serves more purpose than just educational. Shouldn't everybody know the kinds of things geography teaches? Yes, but consider a classroom of children. Shouldn't their geography lessons teach them the kind of things that grown-ups would like to know? Consider how unreasonable we adults are. We would never read a travel book that wasn't interesting, lively and adventurous. Even when we go around with our Fodor's travel guide in hand, we skip the dry facts and figures and read the interesting descriptions of places. That's the kind of thing we like to know about and that we remember easily. But we refuse such interesting tidbits for our children. We don't let them have vivid phrases to dream about. No, we think they need facts, names and figures."
"How is geography usually taught? The child has to memorize the capital cities of Europe, or the rivers of England, or the names of mountains in Scotland, from some miserably dull textbook. He has to learn how many miles long, or feet high, or population count, or find the names on his map, whatever his teacher assigns. Poor child! His lesson is difficult, but is it educating him? Is it developing his mental power or broadening his mind? No, he'd learn more by watching a fly walk up a window. But someone might argue, geography serves more purpose than just educational. Shouldn't everybody know the kinds of things geography teaches? Yes, but consider a classroom of children. Shouldn't their geography lessons teach them the kind of things that grown-ups would like to know? Consider how unreasonable we adults are. We would never read a travel book that wasn't interesting, lively and adventurous. Even when we go around with our Fodor's travel guide in hand, we skip the dry facts and figures and read the interesting descriptions of places. That's the kind of thing we like to know about and that we remember easily. But we refuse such interesting tidbits for our children. We don't let them have vivid phrases to dream about. No, we think they need facts, names and figures."
Geography Should be Interesting
"But, you might argue, although dry facts may be difficult to learn, it's useful later in life to know those things. Not true, and here's why. Those facts were never really received and assimilated by the mind. They never became more than unattached vague terms of short-term memory. Most of us have spent hours over the drudgery of memorizing geography lessons, but how much do we remember? We only remember the pleasant descriptions we heard from friends who visited Europe, or some things from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or some other adventure. And that's how children should learn geography. To be educational, the child's mind must be filled with ideas. His imagination must be enhanced with images. He must learn geography in a way that he'll remember. In other words, he should learn what's interesting to him. What's educational and what's practical both work together, and a child's geography lessons become his favorite part of school." -Charlotte Mason
"But, you might argue, although dry facts may be difficult to learn, it's useful later in life to know those things. Not true, and here's why. Those facts were never really received and assimilated by the mind. They never became more than unattached vague terms of short-term memory. Most of us have spent hours over the drudgery of memorizing geography lessons, but how much do we remember? We only remember the pleasant descriptions we heard from friends who visited Europe, or some things from The Voyages of Captain Cook, or some other adventure. And that's how children should learn geography. To be educational, the child's mind must be filled with ideas. His imagination must be enhanced with images. He must learn geography in a way that he'll remember. In other words, he should learn what's interesting to him. What's educational and what's practical both work together, and a child's geography lessons become his favorite part of school." -Charlotte Mason
The Meaning of a Map
"...give him thorough, detailed knowledge of any country in the world, and some county or district near his home. He doesn't need to memorize 'the geography' of every country in Europe, or the names of the seven continents. Those are merely meaningless names to him for the most part. Even if he does learn them, he probably won't remember them. But if he can feel at home in any one region, if he can envision in his mind the people there working and having fun, the flowers and trees bearing fruit in their season, the animals that are common there, and if he can see it all sympathetically as an adventurous traveler, then he will know more than if he had learned all the names on the map. The way to accomplish this kind of teaching is simple and obvious. Read to him, or read to yourself and tell him back a little bit at a time, an interesting, well-written travel book such as Tropical World or Polar World, both by G. Hartwig, or Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bishop Bird. You may have to leave out a lot, but every anecdote or description that helps show something about the place will enhance the child's education. Here, as with everything else, it isn't how many things he knows about that counts, but how much he knows about each thing."
"...give him thorough, detailed knowledge of any country in the world, and some county or district near his home. He doesn't need to memorize 'the geography' of every country in Europe, or the names of the seven continents. Those are merely meaningless names to him for the most part. Even if he does learn them, he probably won't remember them. But if he can feel at home in any one region, if he can envision in his mind the people there working and having fun, the flowers and trees bearing fruit in their season, the animals that are common there, and if he can see it all sympathetically as an adventurous traveler, then he will know more than if he had learned all the names on the map. The way to accomplish this kind of teaching is simple and obvious. Read to him, or read to yourself and tell him back a little bit at a time, an interesting, well-written travel book such as Tropical World or Polar World, both by G. Hartwig, or Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella Bishop Bird. You may have to leave out a lot, but every anecdote or description that helps show something about the place will enhance the child's education. Here, as with everything else, it isn't how many things he knows about that counts, but how much he knows about each thing."
"Geography should mostly be learned from maps. Talking about landscapes and reading travel books is only an introduction to geography. When the child begins real geography lessons, he should be learning from maps. This principle is important. No matter how many interesting facts and anecdotes a child may know about Italy, if he isn't familiar with it on a map, then he knows nothing about its geography. So his geography lessons should begin by learning what a map is and how to use one." -Charlotte Mason
Egyptian Feast
I have really enjoyed the community of homeschoolers we have built here and I encourage you to check out the links you may not have seen and make a comment on the posts.
As always I hope that you continue to link your new (and old) posts with any history and geography topic to this meme every Thursday.
What history and geography studies have you been doing?
Remember that I am pinning all posts to Pinterest.
You might want to check out the Pinterest board and see all the past posts.
Follow Phyllis Bergenholtz's board History and Geography Meme on Pinterest.
Please include this button on either the post you have linked or your sidebar or mention All Things Beautiful History and Geography meme in your post with a link. All posts that do not link directly to a history or geography post will be deleted.
More posts from Phyllis Bergenholtz
