Educating

This chapter considers the nature of what it is to ‘educate geographically’, how this has developed historically, its impact on students’ world views and experiences, and what key challenges and opportunities face contemporary geographical education. These questions will be discussed in relation to signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005) and an exploration of the following key themes: the relationship between viewing the world and world view; fieldwork and geographical knowledge, skills and praxis; implications of Information and Communications Technology for the production and consumption of geographic knowledge; and whether an ‘authentic’ geographical education can prepare graduates for living responsibly in a (super)complex world (Barnett, 2000). We contextualise these themes in the discipline’s intellectual heritage, but we also relate them to constraints imposed by evolving government policies. We are aware that we offer an inevitably selective agenda, and we are equally conscious that the discussion is driven by Anglo-American literature, practices and policies, which marginalises geographical work in other languages (Garcia-Ramon, 2003). We have endeavoured, nevertheless, to draw on a range of international examples and studies. In addressing the issues, we include a range of undergraduate and postgraduate student views from our own department, in order to gain some insight into what it is to study geography today and how contemporary students imagine, think and act geographically. Universities have recently been defined as ‘a home for attempts to extend and deepen human understanding in ways which are, simultaneously, disciplined and illimitable’ (Collini, 2012). The university setting is an important focus of discussion here, but it would be a mistake to confine consideration of educational experience to universities, or even periods or spaces of formal study. Education is recognised increasingly as a lifelong endeavour which takes place in many contexts, such as the home, commune, street, social club, workplace and time-space of travel