Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The first south-up world map, published by Stuart McArthur in 1979.
Hey, Australia: if south is so great, where's Antarctica?
In 1984, David Helgren found himself out of a job, but he was also surprised to find
himself being consulted as an expert in geographic education, thanks to his brief splash of
media fame. “It was an area where I never would have gone,” he tells me as we polish off
some tacos at a little family-run Mexican place near his home. He started doing in-service
training for teachers and then founded a center for geographic education at San Jose State,
where he taught for the next two decades. “I wrote some textbooks, and it turned out I was
good at it. That's a world where academic geographers are not supposed to go, because it's
financially successful. Academic geographers are supposed to be poor, and most of them
are. But I wound up with a nice royalty check for thirty years.” Three years ago, his text-
book royalties allowed him to retire early from teaching.
Helgren'sfamemaynothavelastedmuchmorethantheWarhol-allottedfifteenminutes,
but “geographic illiteracy” is still in the spotlight almost three decades later. He didn't cre-
atethememe,buthewastheonewhomoveditfromthebackpagesofeducationaljournals
to the front pages of the nation's newspapers, and from there it became a movement. Other
schoolsandpollstersbeganconductingtheirownregularplace-namesurveys.
Good Morn-
ing America
hiredHelgren'sformerMiamicolleagueHarmdeBlijasitson-air“geography
editor.” A 1985 computer game called
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?,
full of
