Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
to the peace and development of international society”. It is especially critical at the
present time, with the spread of globalization, that it is extremely important to instill
in students the basic and fundamental knowledge related to the world's regional
diversity and to foster a geographical recognition of the whole world. Given this
situation, the units focused on geographical characteristics of the world's regions
have been restored in the 2008 National Curriculum Standards.
Major heading number (1) which deals with a geographical understanding of the
world is divided into four sub-headings, of which three consist of newly established
content. The fi rst of these is '(B) People's livelihood and the environment in various
parts of the world'. This can be seen as responding to the 'emphasis on learning
about many different traditions, cultures, and religions' that was spelled out as one
of the basic principles in the revision of junior high school Social Studies, by more
or less restoring the content of 'people's livelihood and the environment' from the
1989 version of the National Curriculum Standards (Ministry of Education, Science
and Culture
1989
).
The second is '(C) The world's regions'. In this heading, geographical phenomena
provides a context through which one can solidly grasp the pattern of the livelihood
of people living in the six major regions of Asia, Europe, Africa, North America,
South America, and Oceania. The learning is positioned as regional geography
education that will support students' understanding of the geographical characteris-
tics of these regions. In the interpretation of the 2008 National Curriculum Standards,
'topics' are themes to be decided by the teacher while considering other factors,
such as the geographical phenomena being dealt with, the content previously covered,
the ease or diffi culty of the topic, the student's life experience, the projected learn-
ing activities, and the classroom time involved. Teachers will need to consider
whether there is suffi cient time to cover the proposed topics as well as teach an
overview of each region's geographical characteristics from many different aspects.
For that reason, one should focus on only one or two topics for each major region.
Also, when setting out the topics, it is necessary to decide whether they lend them-
selves to drawing comparisons or relationships with Japan, and whether the pattern
of human life in the world's regions are seen from the many aspects. Topical study is
excellent in that one can pick and choose from among the immensity of geographical
phenomena. However, the main emphasis should be on making geographical themes
clear, so if a mistake is made in the choice of topics then the regional nature will be
unclear (Kobayashi
2009
).
The third sub-heading with new content is '(D) Surveys of the world's many
different regions'. Although only partially, the content of 'instilling the perspectives
and methods for grasping geographical characteristics,' which is emphasized in
both the 1989 and the 2008 National Curriculum Standards.
As far as the topics for the six major regions are concerned, many examples from
the National Curriculum Standards' interpretation have been incorporated in the
textbooks, so lesson plans are created in alignment with these. However, the order
in which they are taught differs across teachers. For example, at the 2010 National
Junior High School Social Studies Education Research Association conference in
Sendai-Miyagi, a lesson plan proposed to begin the course with North America fi rst.
