What the GAO Report on Geography Really Says

K-12 EDUCATION: Most Eighth Grade Students Are Not Proficient in Geography

Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report titled K-12 EDUCATION: Most Eighth Grade Students Are Not Proficient in Geography (pdf). I read it this weekend. Here's a recap.

Why the report?

The Senate asked the GAO to report on the status of geography education and challenges elementary and secondary schools face in providing that education with limited resources.

What did the GAO do?

The GAO examined: 

• eighth grade geography proficiency 
• challenges some school officials and teachers face in teaching geography
• the role of the Department of Education in geography education 

Geographers as University Presidents

I read last week about how Bowling Green State University celebrated the inauguration of Mary Ellen Mazey as its 11th president. She comes to the university from her previous position as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Auburn University (press release). And, she's a geographer. Among those speaking at a panel in her honor titled "Geography in the Changing World of Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges," was Duane Nellis, president of the University of Idaho and a geographer (article in BG paper). If things weren't so chaotic at Penn State, its president Rodney Erickson, also a geographer, might have chimed in. A quick look suggests these geographers have at least one more fellow university president/geographer: Professor Abdulaziz Bin Sagr Al-Ghamdi, a geographer (Michigan State PhD) leads Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in Saudi Arabia.

I didn't know much about university presidents or geographers until I went to college. I learned that it was (in 1982) a big deal that a woman (Hanna Holborn Gray) served as president of my school. She was, if I recall correctly, the only woman leading a major university at that time. Now, well, even Harvard has a woman president! I also learned during my college years, that Saul Cohen, a geographer, was president of Queens College. I suspect I would not have known that had I not gone into geography and had my parents not been friends with Mr. Cohen.

So, here we stand with no fewer than three geographers (one a woman, no less!) running significant state universities in the United States. How does the geographic lobby for education (currently defined by, well .... the Geo-Literacy Coalition might be a contender) take advantage of this situation? How do we leverage these voices, their vision and standing to bring geography to the fore in our nation?

I'm not exactly sure, but I didn't want this happy accident to go unnoticed by those who might be able to take advantage of the situation.

Flat Stanley Goes Digital (and Loses his Way?)

I just caught up with Flat Stanley. Apparently, back in August he jumped online and has been reborn on a website created by a company called Flatter World (press release). There's also an iPhone app for the game. Or is it an activity? Or a learning experience?

I ran into Flat Stanley as a young reader of the book of the same name and later as an educator. I read about how Stanley was used in geography class. My understanding, back then, was that a class drew and cut out its own Flat Stanley and sent him, typically with a parent on a  business trip, to a distant location. There, the parent would share stories and pictures of Stanley's adventure. Stanley might come home, or if possible join someone new for another adventure, which was documented and shared with the class. Students would map where Stanley travelled and learn about those places. It was all very quaint and low tech. That educational implementation is still happening as documented by a local paper here in Massachusetts.

Looking over the new offering, I find the quaintness replaced by avatars and Facebook feeds and all the wonders of social media. And, of course, Stanley can now travel electronically, so he need not board a plane or suffer the indignity of being stuffed in an envelope for the mailman.

Sadly, though, the new site has little alignment with geography. The project is geared toward literacy via students corresponding with one another. The vision is that the new "pen pals" already have a friend in common (Stanley) and so writing is more natural and meaningful than distant random pen pals might be. Literacy is a great goal, don't get me wrong. I'm just disappointed Stanley has lost tie to geography in this new Web iteration.

But, I'm hopeful. With all the great Web resources about the "old paper and stamps" version of the activity (like this one at Social Studies for Kids), I'm hopeful teachers won't jump to the "new one" so fast. And, in time, maybe today's savvy geography educators will re-infuse geography into Stanley's new digital life.

via Edutopia

Lobbying for Geo Ed: Doomed by Geography's Nature?

It's been tough to lobby for geography education at any level. And, the results have not been heartening. Harvard tossed the degree in 1948 and my own college (U Chicago) shuttered its department (in favor of a committee) in 1986. This year energy is behind a bipartisan bill in Congress to fund K-12 geography education. It was first introduced in 2005 and has gone nowhere through the years, hence its reintroduction again and again.

To be sure, some of us in the field have a hard time giving an elevator pitch for geography. The good news is that a variety of organizations have gathered data to help us. They include the Dept. of Labor, the Association of American Geographers, the Geospatial Information and Technology Association among others. One challenge I find as I read through the supporting documents is a dichotomy that may set these efforts up to fail. It's the simple fact that geography is identified as both social and physical science. Now, those "inside" geography are typically fine with this situation. We happily point to human and physical geography and the art and algorithms behind hand drawn and computer created data visualization. Many would argue the mix makes geography synergistic, unique and vital.

But how does that play out in lobbying (aka "marketing") geography? Not so well I fear. The latest press release from the AAG quotes several former U.S. secretaries of state about the value of geography. Said Madeleine Albright, "Young Americans with an understanding of peoples, places, and cultures have a clear advantage in today’s rapidly-changing global economy..." That suggests that geography is a social science. In the same release, the AAG aims to convince the administration "to include geography education as part of its proposals for improving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education." That suggests geography is a physical science.

As someone in the field, I have no issue with this potential confusion. But, as someone who considers herself an amateur when it comes to marketing, I feel this confusion could cloud the issue and weaken, not strengthen, the case for geography. If the response to the AAG's well-meaning effort is "These folks don't even know what they are talking about!" the lobbying effort may stop in its tracks.

What to do? It may be in the best interest of those lobbying for those federal dollars not to fully abandon one or the other of the natures of geography, but rather to focus like a laser on one or the other for the purpose of marketing. Which one? My gut says that right now STEM is buzzier so I'd lean that way. However, it really doesn't matter. I think a single focused message will take this effort further than trying to make geography all things to all people, even if in reality, it is just that.