So I went to a Catholic Grammar school for my secondary education, and studied a huge range of subjects to a surprisingly rigorous standard. My favourite subjects, as evinced by my A level choices, were English Literature, Religious studies and Geography, in no particular order. In a recent Guardian article regarding climate change teaching in the Geography curriculum, the contents of the articles and the positions held in the comments sections below were very disturbing. The self-proclaimed scientists and political commentators providing the below-the-line content of the article seem to have some extremely skewed views and malformed understandings and notions across several disciplines. I thought, rather than post up on the Guardian website itself and;
a) be labelled a "troll" and disparaged by equally trollish posters or;
b) have my comments moderated due to the perceived proliferation of troll logic,
I would instead post my views here, and leave them open for any commentary from those same skeptics and disparagers of the UK education system.
Point 1: Belief is faith, and proclaiming belief presupposes religious or uneducated positions in debate
This is not only a case for CiF commenters, but throughout the internet. It is something I feel has promulgated widely since the advent of the internet as a means of information dissemination. The reason for it is because several global and international education systems have different cultural and historical hermenetical perspectives on how to treat educated information and data. The core syllabus of one country may differ greatly from another, even if some of the subject matter correlates. A personal example I can give is that of English Language studies in the UK. At my school, no subject was more disparaged and denigrated than that of 'English Language.' Instead, we were encouraged to take the subject in a de jure fashion, but simply use the class time to learn our English Literature course material more substantively - an excellent choice by my thoroughly enlightened English teacher. In the mainland UK, however (as opposed to my own Northern Ireland), the subject is considered an employment and developmental staple measure, used to demonstrate that an individual is capable of work if they can pass an examination in their native language. To that, I retort that my Irish speaking friend at school failed every single Irish GCSE examination, or was outperformed by me, someone who to this day does not have the confidence to speak the language with fluency or eloquence...
In the context of debates regarding the relevance or content of certain secondary (KS 3, GCSE and GCE) subjects, views are particularly altered by the modern focus on scientific method as the zenith of educational activity, the core requirement of physical and natural sciences with mathematics, and a particular hatred or skepticism regarding the rigourousness of the arts and humanities in schools. I can't speak for useless schools, which we cannot be in denial of, but my education was free on the condition that I passed my Eleven Plus exams, and so I was guaranteed a high quality, affordable education. My teachers were not motivated primarily by money and income, but also by a vocational attitude towards teaching across the board. It is by coming from such a standard that I can quote my teachers with confidence, and hold their teachings as truths and methodically sound.
So I come to my main point about belief. It was in Religious studies, the only thing remotely close to Philosophy taught at my school, that I came across the nature of belief as a component of the notion of faith. To quote my teacher, Mrs. McGraine;
Catholic and Christian faith is defined by two aspects. The first is belief and the second is trust. In order to relate this to you best, I will demonstrate it thusly. <Pointing to a student in the classroom> I can believe that student A can go to the principal's office if I tell him to. I believe that his physical legs are capable of carrying him there by burning energy through his muscles to produce walking momentum in the direction of the room, presupposing that he (as I further believe) is capable of understanding my instruction in a given shared language and is aware of the directions and position of the destined room. However, in order to have faith that he would do as I believe, I have to trust that, were I to request him to go to the principal's office, he would actually do so of his own volition and without any guidance or observation by me personally. I trust that he won't actually run off, or say that he has gone when he hasn't, because I equally trust that he is aware of the consequences and ramifications if he doesn't. Now go to the offfice, student A!I would later learn at university that this goes further in the notion that there are numenological and phenomenological understandings of the world. That a law exists and/or can be observed, measured and tested against is a numenon, or a given, objective fact. Mathematical logic and scientific methods of hypothesis, examination and evaluation can be applied to a numenon. They can be conveyed, and they can form a belief. The nature of trust is entirely separate from a numenon, and is phenomenological in nature. It takes into account the experience of a numenon, of an objective nature being observed, and are drawn from habitual or mnemonic means. It is a learned or nurtured pattern of behaviour in reaction to an observance or phenomenon. But the two together are the constituents of Christian faith:
Belief + Trust = Faith
Simple formula, if you are missing either aspect, you are not going to have the result. That was taught to me at a young age objectively, by a subject with faith, and I have grown up myself without any trust in the Christian beliefs. Ergo, I have no faith. QED.
My problem is with people who comment in response to statements "I believe..." with a reactive "Your beliefs mean nothing in the face of evidence and science." What a totally ridiculous position to have in the face of the prior, secondary school level notion of belief, of numenological knowledge, of scientia. I honestly have to question what exactly most scientists learn in their laboratories and university lecture halls but beliefs that they then test and experiment upon for more rigour, more stringent evidence, or for contrasts and conflicting positions. All of that is, of course, aside from the lack of imagination and free thinking exhibited by modern, rote scientists. In an enlightened, 21st Century debate, I believe that the agent who dictates to another that their beliefs have no place in an argument in the face of science is indeed not enough a rational scientist to have stated such a claim in the first place. I say this for their sake, and for the sake of collective macro-intelligence, in forming strong knowledge and understanding from commentary on articles online.
Point 2: The responsibility for climate change awareness is on the part of science, not on the study of Geography (the so-called "Boring science")
In what is perhaps the most preposterous position ever held in a rational argument for climate change education pre-14 years old, Guardian readers and the scientific community believe that the remit for spreading awareness and objective study of climate science is in GCSE Science classes, cuckolding Geography as "a minority subject with little relevance."
I studied Geography for 14 years in school, from tree types and naturally formed systems in primary school, to the Carbon/Nitrogen/Water cycles, Plate tectonics (which I know more about to this day from my secondary school than any university educated general scientist has ever been able to demonstrate to me), ordinance survey mapping, coordinates and triangulation (something taught in mathematics but never practically demonstrated), sampling techniques (which I got to learn with outdoors and indoor data collection, sample selection and graphing), diagrammatic reasoning (never really taught in any other subject relevantly except perhaps Physics, and even then with a lot of imagination and formula on top) and of course, human analyses such as urban planning, migration and population data gathering and scrutiny (population pyramids anyone?).
What is more, many of the methods taught in Geography classes help with sifting through data that forms articles such as the one in question. As an example, most education departments show school subject uptake in the form of percentage distribution and total population; data types most easily and readily shown in a population pyramid. We can delineate subject popularity, grade inflation, and future gaps in employment markets against other data from, say, the private sector. If you are telling me that governments are better advised in their planning and policies by individuals who have never used population pyramids as a data representation, such as through their Geography classes, than someone who hasn't (and mostly likely has a PhD in Modern History, damn Tories...), then I call your entire contribution to the debate on education planning into question.
Moreover, with the dearth of uptake of PE classes and a physical outdoors education to provide a strong, well rounded individual, how can one make the assertion that dropping Geography from core curricula is right when it is primarily an outdoor, practical subject? Fluvial, coastal and mountain safety are all well taught in these classes, as well as good nature conservation and stewardship practices and responsibilities in young minds! If you want to stop littering among your children, the best way is to get them out in the woods or into a river doing some studies and seeing the Coca Cola cans and fast food detritus that pock mark our natural landscapes.
Finally, diagrammatic reasoning is, to this day, the best thing I ever took away from my Geography studies. To this day, I am still the only member of my family, friends and colleagues who can plot a subduction diagram of volcanic mountain ranges, of fold mountains, of oceanic shelfs, of earthquake zones. I am the only one able to diagram a river meander into an oxbow lake, or describe a spit-to-bar coastal formation (something I recently showed a complete stranger while flying from Scotland to Ireland on an aeroplane). I am the only one who visits cities and tries to find the CBDs and Twilight districts for visitors centres, attractions and restaurants. I am the only one who can not only name all of the countries of the world (and most of their capitals - still working on that!) but can also draw an atlas of the world with reasonable accuracy and scale. I can therefore demonstrate cartographic, coordinate and process/systems skills and reasoning to a high degree because I did Geography!
But far and away from the points I've made, it is the fact that I look back fondly on Geography, and genuinely looked forward to classes (even if they were from my rather dour and occasionally lacrimose teacher) especially outdoors or ordinance survey lessons. Anything involving cartography, mapping, location, data handling or gathering, and a great dose of fresh air. It certainly got me out of my library ruts (English Literature) or philosophic migraines (Religious studies), and I'm pretty sure I must have kept at least four stationary companies in the black. I would never deny any child the amazing experiences I had, and the valuable knowledge I have, from being a Geography student, and I beg that the new generation of scientists, policy makers and online commentators on the subject keep this in mind when they think up new ways to pump meaningless mathematical formulae and Shelley quotes into the minds of our youth. In terms of climate change education, no subject is better placed to teach our children an appreciation of the natural environment, the possible consequences of mass migration and coastal flooding/erosion, and to be mindful of how the small things in our lives produce huge effects in the natural world.
What I learned in Geography class:
- How to read a map.
- How to make a map.
- How to define a sample.
- How to experiment on a sample.
- How to graph and diagram my measurements.
- How plate tectonics created the world around me.
- How the major cycles/systems in nature work, and my influence on them (also partially in Biology and Chemistry).
- The sheer importance of water.
- How all of human civilisation is coordinated and measurable in various ways, and how to plan for future changes, growths or declines.
- How to measure those changes, growths of declines.
- How to make volcanoes, mountains, earthquakes, deserts, air phenomena and even soil exciting and relevant.
- My first lessons in peak oil, population growth (Malthusian Catastrophe), sustainable agriculture, Air/Ground layers, spheres and biomes, and (my absolute favourite subject from school) Plate Tectonics!!!
What I learned from Triple Award Science Chemistry
- A lot about elements, moles and atomic numbers/masses.
- A bit about transfers and phenomena in chemical reactions.
- Absolutely tons (!) about Iron. I mean, this is totally, massively a part of GCSE Chemistry yet I've never worked in an Iron/Steel producing industry.
What I learned in Biology
- Need a whole article, but there was so much across so many disciplines and of such importance that to give way to any of it for climate/environmental science is a bit dangerous or negligent.
- **Very important** Nitrogen cycles as part of algal bloom!!
What I learned in Physics
- A lot about inside wires, electronics, waves, motion, matter, masses, forces, and other stuff that is useful but that you'd need to be in a lab or work environment to get any relevance from, most times.
For the Geography student, the world is your laboratory, a field or river or beach or town centre is your experiment, a blowing wind is your subject matter, a mountain is a research opportunity, a fish pool or lake or reservoir is an unexpected and insightful case study, the world itself is your oyster, and the whole history and distribution of every man, woman and child across it is your raison d'etre.
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