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Recommended Reading
Geography and Education: Through the Souls of Our Feet
by Kieran O'Mahony
Educare Press
ISBN: 0-944638-26-0review by Mary Anne Dorward
"Geography and Education is not the geography of lists of state capitals, rivers and mountain ranges, but the exciting, problem solving geography that is capturing the minds of thousands of teachers and students across the country, " states educator Gilbert Grosvenor in his introduction to this wonderful new book, Geography and Education; Through the Souls of Our Feet. Author Kieran O'Mahoney, Fellow Of The Royal Geographical Society, and Distinguished Scholar from the Pennsylvania Geographical Society, has written an extraordinary book which gives us all an exciting glimpse at how Geography could be taught in a revolutionary new way. Geography and Education is a comprehensive and comparative description of the development of geography in educational systems and the political ideologies which were developing along side them over time.
Beginning with early Greek educational philosophers, this book describes how both disciplines emerged out of scholarship and as a consequence of historical change. We are introduced to the historian Herodotus, the educators, Plato and Aristotle, and to the geographers Ptolemy and Copernicus.
O' Mahoney profiles the leaders of educational thought, including British, Teutonic, Russian and French idealists. Great secular movements resulted from the idealistic views of Rousseau, which were adapted and implemented, in the first Ecole Normale by Pestalozzi. This paved the way not only for great modern educators like Maria Montessori, and Froebel, but also for great ideas, such as universal education. We are introduced to the many pioneers of modern geography. Ideas and theories of remarkable Europeans such as Alexander Von Humboldt, Karl Ritter, Elisee Reclus and Americans like William Morris Davis, Thomas Jefferson, are Gilbert Grosvenor are featured.
Geography and Education discusses how both geography and education came to the new world. Educational thinkers, who had nurtured the European systems, were an influence across the Atlantic at a time when Americans were exploring democracy and freedom. Men like Henry Barnard and Horace Mann understood the importance of geography in the new school system and were instrumental in incorporating the science from the beginning. New ideals and philosophies that had their roots in the French Revolution and 'enlightenment' provided a unique tapestry for North American schools.
However, geography was not destined to thrive in a curricular struggle in America that was bogged down in economic and social struggles. In spite of the unique contribution of organizations like The National Geographic Society, The Association of American Geographers and others, geography continued to be a second-class subject in an American school curriculum that always appeared too crowded and it languished for most of the twentieth century.
Presently, the US Government, National Board of Education and the National Geographic society are all reexamining the role of geography and geography education in American schools. It has become clear that the loss of decades of geography education has left American children and adults isolated and exposed on the world map. Author Kieran O'Mahoney is a visionary. His thoughtful insights and well researched book, Geography and Education: Through The Souls of Our Feet, will surely prove to be a major building block as we reintroduce geography education back into American schools in the twenty first century.
Copyright © May 2003 New Horizons for Learning, all rights reserved.
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