Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
3.3
Future Issues
This chapter described the important points of the current revisions in geography
as well as the current status of geography education. A number of issues remain.
To begin with, due to the newly added content in the current revisions, the increase in
learning content is greater than the increase in the number of hours that are allotted for.
In order to prevent a shortage of hours from creating the impression that 'geography
is a memorization subject,' it is necessary to further advance the development of
teaching materials and the improvement of teaching methods and strategies. For this
reason, it is particularly important to promote active learning and to strengthen
learning that deals with relevant issues to student interest in order to further cultivate
their abilities in problem solving. Promoting such learning enhances their thinking,
judgment, and expressive abilities which are necessary to confront issues of the
twenty-fi rst century and beyond.
A pressing taskis creating ways to promote teacher training. Based on teachers'
geographic learning from the courses they have taken, those in their 30s and
younger did not study about world regions when they were in junior high school.
To mediate teacher knowledge, models of professional training exist. For example,
Saitama Prefecture provides newly hired teachers 30 h of training but among those,
no more than 3 h are dedicated to fi eld work (Saitama Prefecture General Education
Center
2012
). Moreover, the total number of teachers in Social Studies who majored
in geography is small, relative to history, politics or economy. One can easily see how
these factors contribute to low implementation of map use, outdoor observation, and
local area surveys. The current issues are compounded by limited teacher initiatives
such as asking other teachers at the workplace for instructional materials or
voluntarily participating in the study training courses offered by research groups or
academic associations.
Given the demands on teachers, it is necessary for the educational administrative
bodies to actively promote the development of teaching materials and systematic
training on the knowledge and skills important to geography fi eld instruction (e.g., map
reading and local area surveys) as well as to further increase the number of teachers
who enjoy teaching geography. At the school level, it is important to build a collegial
environment that facilitates the sharing of the latest research through courses, to include
external support and resources, to create and introduce new teaching materials. In the
future, teachers should actively participate in in-service training to learn new
geographic skills and teaching content as well as develop confi dence to reconstruct
new and existing materials that conform to the National Curriculum Standards.
References
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (1999) Chugakko gakushu sido yoryo (Heisei 10 nen
12 gatsu) kaisetsu shakaihen (Junior high school course of study (December, 1998) - explana-
tion- social studies). Osaka shoseki, Osaka
