Norwood (1943)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction

Part I Secondary education
Chapter 1 Nature of secondary education
Chapter 2 Secondary education as it is
Chapter 3 Secondary education as it might be

Part II Examinations
Chapter 4 Existing examinations
Chapter 5 The reorganisation of examinations (i)
Chapter 6 The reorganisation of examinations (ii)
Chapter 7 The Inspectorate

Part III Curriculum
Chapter 8 The curriculum in general
Chapter 9 Physical education
Chapter 10 Religious education
Chapter 11 English
Chapter 12 History
Chapter 13 Geography
Chapter 14 Mathematics
Chapter 15 Natural science
Chapter 16 Modern languages
Chapter 17 Classics
Chapter 18 Art, music, handicrafts
Chapter 19 Domestic subjects
Chapter 20 Education for commerce
Chapter 21 Wales and the teaching of Welsh

Conclusions and recommendations
Appendix A Note on the Central Welsh Board
Appendix B List of witnesses
Index

Report of the Committee of the Secondary School Examinations Council appointed by the President of the Board of Education in 1941

London: HM Stationery Office 1943

Chapter 13 Geography
[pages 101 - 104. In the printed version this is Part III Chapter VI]

Without attempt at precise definition it may be said that geography is the study of man and his environment from selected points of view. Yet natural science, economics, history, the study of local conditions as regards industry or agriculture might also be said to be concerned with environment. For this reason geography is a good school subject, since it finds it easy to make contact with other subjects; for environment is a term which is easily expanded to cover every condition and every phase of activity which make up normal everyday experience. This expansiveness of geography carries with it an advantage and a temptation; the advantage is that geography at many points invites other subjects to join with it in a concerted attack upon the same topic from various points of departure, and in so doing calls attention to the common purposes and utilities of those subjects. On the other hand enthusiasts for geography may be inclined sometimes to extend their range so widely as to swallow up other subjects; in so doing they widen their boundaries so vaguely that definition of purpose is lost, and the distinctive virtues inherent in other studies closely pursued are ignored in a general survey of wide horizons. Such virtues cannot be ignored without loss.

Again, geography as the study of environment, proceeds from immediate surroundings to more remote surroundings. From the nature of its own subject matter, therefore, it finds it easy to obey the precept that the enlargement of experience at which the study of school subjects aims should take place from what is familiar and concrete towards the less familiar and the abstract.

These then are reasons why we urge that geography should be a compulsory subject in the early stages of the school course; they are not, however, such as to preclude it from a place among advanced studies.

From what has been said it is clear that as regards geography perhaps more than any other subject the planning of the course of work must be closely related to the circumstances of the school, and among these circumstances must be included not only the physical environment of the school, but also the nature of the other subjects undertaken there and the gifts and sympathies of teachers concerned with those subjects no less than of those concerned with geography. That geography in a given school should take into account the physical surroundings of that school is familiar enough; it is equally important that it should consciously relate itself to the other studies pursued at that school and to the particular aims and scope of those studies. This does not mean that geography is placed in a subordinate position as a handmaid to other subjects; it means only that geography should be wise enough to understand its own advantages, and in that understanding to realise its own specific aims in close association with other subjects.

No general report therefore can attempt to discuss in detail the course of work which schools might undertake; for the scope and range of the geography syllabus is peculiarly dependent on special circumstances. We would confine ourselves therefore to two points.

(a) The course of geography in schools might reasonably be expected to include:

(i) the elements of physical geography;

(ii) studies on various scales (e.g. world, continent, region, parish);

(iii) training in such skills as map reading, the use of atlases and of books of reference;

(iv) fieldwork and first-hand knowledge of town and country and of life in town and country;

(v) opportunities for the study of the geographical aspects of ventures which challenge or inspire human effort as, for example, exploration, mountaineering, flying.

We would urge that such fieldwork, or local survey, should find a place in every syllabus. Admittedly timetable arrangements, cooperation among teachers, the time needed for preparation of suitable schemes may present difficulties; but in our opinion every effort should be made to surmount them, and to make way for a type of work which holds out great promise as an introduction to practical citizenship and as a means of bringing about the unified approach to different fields of learning which we have desired.

The value of setting aside a single room for the teaching of geography has already been proved by experience. The room must be of good size, conveniently placed and large enough to allow for the ready use of the various aids to teaching - maps, pictures, models and the like - and for the tables which are more convenient than desks in the teaching of this subject.

(b) Geography is a subject which in conjunction with such subjects as modern languages, history, economics, public affairs, statistics makes up a course of studies in the sixth form particularly suitable for pupils who will read economics or history at the university or will go on to posts of an administrative nature in business or public concerns. Such courses tried in different quarters have proved their value; geography, broadly interpreted, has offered a framework or provided a cement which has held together other subjects and given unity to the course.

It is not realised even now as widely as it should be that the advance in geographical knowledge has been so great that general truths have been established for which the evidence two generations ago simply did not exist. No one can realise more vividly than the trained geographer that the great regions of the earth are interdependent, and no one can base the approach to world harmony on sounder foundations than he. The advanced study of geography is not only of economic but of high political value, and, though it makes use of the contributions of several sciences which for its purposes are ancillary, it imposes its own unity upon them. For that unity is imposed by nature itself; it is the unity of the region which is the subject of study. It may be that physics and chemistry, botany and biology, geology and meteorology may all in turn be called into conference, and in the hands of a poor teacher the subject may become as motley and disintegrated as it is sometimes thought to be. But in the hands of a good teacher it will not be so. He will use the study to bring out all the facts that nature has given, and to establish the vital truth that, while there is much in nature which governs man inevitably, on the basis of that knowledge and that knowledge alone man can proceed to the discovery that there is much in nature which he in turn can govern and direct. Without this firm basis in geography we cannot proceed with confidence to the planning of the economic or the political design of the future world. It is for this reason that the subject is a good foundation for enlightened citizenship, that it is good material for sixth form study, and will in our opinion hold a place of increasing importance in the future. Whether we look to the town, country and regional planning which must have place in this, country, or to the much greater task of planning in interdependence the industrial and agricultural regions of Europe and the the world, whether we consider the problem of developing colonies without exploitation or directing rightly the growth of primitive populations and the supply of raw materials, it is geography which will give the basic knowledge and remind us continually that the world is not only one but extremely diverse. It is to be hoped that in the future geographers trained in this full sense will not be so rare as they are today.