Teaching Geography in School: Challenge and few solutions

Ajabul Biswas

Sirohi District Institute, Rajasthan

Geography, people always wanted to know about it. Geography is the oldest discipline in the world, first coined by a Genius, versatile scholar Eratosthenes in 2nd century B.C. In this field contributions of many great scholars are huge. If we talk about Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Galileo, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Strabo, and Al Masudi, Al-Biruni, Ibn Batuta, Ibn Khaldun etc. in Medieval period and Modern age Carl Ritter, Emanuel Kant, F. Ratzel, Churchill, Vidal la Blache and many more. Geography is always demanded investigating Nature and Human environment relationship.

We have some misconceptions about Geography, presently a large number of people know that Geography means information and information related to Earth or different areas on earth's surface. But, in reality, Geography is not the only provider of information. Geography is an investigation or research of nature and the human environment and its relationship. It shows us ground reality with everyday reality. But nowadays we are facing great challenges in front of Teaching Geography. We are graduated in Geography and also completed Post Graduate but still many of us do not realize its applicability and even failed to explain its definition and its area.

In the 21st century, why we are facing so many challenges in Teaching Geography? Just I am trying to find some reasons for, few challenges. And these challenges are more or less everybody knows who part of Teaching Geography is somehow. I visited many Govt. In schools where Geography Teacher and learners are both facing problems, few problems are created and some genuine.

Most of the teachers are interested in Geography because at the Upper Primary level it gives us lots of information. In our daily life, we are using many geographical concepts but did not realize, same things that happened with our teachers. I met with many teachers who completed his/her Graduate and Post Graduate degree in Geography but do not know properly the meaning of Geography. Why did this situation happen? If we try to find the answer to this question then we should go to past when we were students in School. That time also teacher taught us Geography like Information provider, we never felt its applicability (few are exception).

One of the major part or the soul is in Cartography but we never learn about this things in Primary or Upper Primary level. Geography is practical thinking. We have no cartographic knowledge even Students and Teachers failed to answer about Direction and how can we find various direction without help of Magnetic compass and related instruments.

Geography is not a classroom-based subject, if we learn geography within the classroom then we can’t study practical geography then it will be converted into an information provider. Geography is fully based on natural and human environment relationships where classroom is a fact but we should move ahead. Though, teaching geography in classroom is a great problem. If teaching geography is going on in the classroom then pupils can’t realize its importance that’s why we need more exposure. One single visit to any micro Geographical area give us much knowledge if it is properly planned then Students will be more active though the Teaching learning process will be more meaningful. They can define Geography in a proper way.

Teaching Geography in classroom, understanding Geography and its transformation through various way is difficult task for that work Teachers need more participation, preparation and proper plan for everyday work. There are many topic in Geography which is really tough to better transfer among the students. For Example: The astronomical part of Geography (Time, Latitude and Longitude etc.)

In every school more or less we have Physics/ Chemistry/ Biology laboratory but for Geography study we have no laboratory/ various types of map etc. A laboratory or a structured environment plays a great role to increase students' interest in any subject. It gives us lots of opportunities to explore the whole world. A geographer can visualize the whole world and its atmospheric conditions and how it related to human nature if he really understands the terminology of Geography. Objective-based learning is not performing in the classroom, for that reason pupils are confused about its scope or application. If we are trying to set a proper objective for teaching geography then it will be more fruitful to engage all the pupils in the classroom. These few common challenges which we should always try to do minimize in Teaching Geography.