Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
community, moving to prefectures, to a discussion about the country of Japan, and
then on to the world. However, there is no clear evidence that children's interests
expand from local to international scales. Children's interests may actually be more
indicative of having isolated knowledge of a place and that they have not learned
about distant countries.
The literature does suggest that children are more interested in the outside world
if they have some personal connection to it. Assuming that the scope of children's
interests and enthusiasm expand beyond their immediate space, it should prove use-
ful to introduce the study of a different community. In other words, in tandem with
the study of the children's own local community, the curriculum can guide the
exploration of a different community of a similar scale and to focus specifi cally on
the community's phenomena that are familiar to the children, such as social activi-
ties and daily necessities (e.g., food, clothing, shelter and so forth). It is also desir-
able to provoke children's interest in the natural environment, which is the basis for
people's livelihoods. This should be accomplished through studying regions where
the environment is completely different from their own, without actually bringing
up ideas of nations, but only by referring to regions as, for example, “southerly” or
“cold”. Students can follow up by considering the similarities and differences
between the communities. Such teaching should also help children realize that they
share things in common even with the people of faraway regions who are consider-
ably different. If such an approach is taken, the best time to introduce regional
geography is midway through elementary school, which sets the stage for children
to learn about the world from this period onward.
The academic subject of Social Studies should not be held exclusively responsible
for teaching international understanding. Instead, each subject under this umbrella
should be capable of making a contribution through a cross-curricular approach.
In this context, Social Studies would benefi t from taking a regional geography
approach. In other words, Social Studies can provide the groundwork required to
study about people, culture, and place as an integral regional unit within a geo-
graphic context.
18.3.3
Building a Consistent School Curriculum with Regional
Geography as the Core
In Japan, geography education is conducted as part of Social Studies in the broad
sense. As this is unlikely to change in the near future, geography will continue to
provide the foundation of Social Studies and play an integral role in the subject.
As the basis for Social Studies, regional geography should be taught in elementary
schools, which would facilitate an understanding of the lives of people in various
regions and impact knowledge about the relationship between nature and society.
Specifi cally, in the middle grades of elementary school, comparative study
should be made that examines the familiar phenomena (e.g., daily necessities,
school life, and others) of a region similar in scale to children's local community.
Through the comparative process, students will learn about the world beyond Japan.
