Is it time to rethink how we teach geography?

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I don't know about other geography teachers, but I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable about using terms such as developed and developing countries or MEDC/LEDCs. The World Bank has already ditched these phrases from their vocabulary, so is it now time to have a fresh look at how we teach the world to our students?

Is this book the best starting point for reforming our geography curriculum? Many people think so.

Okay, categorising countries as developed and developing is a nice easy way of representing the living standards of populations around our planet for our students to understand. However, we know in our hearts that actually, this is wrong!! Indeed, what we are still effectively doing is telling our youngsters that certain countries are rich and others are poor. The insinuation then follows that somehow developing countries are somehow inferior and live lives of disease filled, starvation riddled misery. At the end of the day, we are portraying our westernised, developed lifestyle as being superior and something these poor, starving, miserable developing people must (if they have the intelligence to think since they must all lack any education) aspire too.

What really got me pondering this was triggered by a summer trekking trip to the Caucasus mountains in Georgia. A four day trek involved making our way from isolated village to village, literally knocking on doors asking for a bed for the night within family homes with complete strangers. Conditions were rustic to say the least. What struck me though, was that although these people were certainly not rich in material terms, they were very wealthy when it came to family, community and human kindness. This was an awakening. This is what we are missing in our society! This is a true measure of prosperity and development.

Why do we preach that financial wealth is the most important measure to base our classification of countries on? Really though? Yes, okay, we do point out other measurements and composites using social indicators to temper league tables with. But is this enough? How about we have a league table based on scales of human happiness?

We have the beginnings of teachers moving away from the traditional, colonial superiority school of geography with the use of the wonderful "Factfulness" resources and "Dollar Street". What we really need now though, is for us to start pressurising Education Scotland and other curriculum providers to have a proper rethink of our curriculum and strip out the aloof, superiority with which we view the world, which is riddled with racism. Geography could just become that bit more appealing and interesting to our youngsters. Who knows, this could ultimately give the next generation the tools to start to make this world a better, fairer place to live. 

Food for thought? These articles provide further insight into this issue. 

                                                            Medication - Dollar Street
                                 Source:- https://www.flickr.com/photos/dollarstreet/15359296432/
                                                               Charcoal pot - Dollar Street

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