Renaissance Movement of Geographic Education in the United States of America

Abstract

The rejuvenation of geographic education in the Japanese schools has just come to a critical point, as the Ministry of Education has announced the new prescribed courses of study to be adopted from 1992 (Elementary), 93 (Junior High) and 94 (Senior High) in the schools. In the U.S., the dynamic renaissance movement of geographic education took off in 1984. Geography educators in Japan need to pay careful attention to the progress of the improvement of geographic education in the U.S. schools.The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the historical development of geographic education in the U.S., focusing on the very dynamic renaissance movement of geographic education since 1984. It was in 1984 that the Joint Committee of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) and the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) edited and published the Guidelines for Geographic Education-Elementary and Secondary Schools.This paper highlights to two aspects; one is the brief history of geographic education and the other is the current state of the renaissance movement of geographic education in the U.S.The history of geographic education in the U.S. shows that since the evolution of the social studies as a core curriculum in 1911, geography education has never an active stage in the school curriculum. After World War II, the AAG and the NCGE experienced a very exciting period (1961-70) in the development of the HSGP (High School Geography Project). The HSGP's ideas and strategies for the improvement of geographic education were very successful in causing adoptation of the scientific process of the geography curriculum. However, it may safely be said that the HSGP failed to have their outcomes adopted in the U.S. high school curriculum.The National Geographic Society with the cooperation of AAG and NCGE has been leading the dynamic renaissance movement of geographic education scheduled for 1986-95. The major goal of the present movement is to reconstruct the contents of the geographic education by adopting the five fundamental themes in geography which were presented in the Guidelines for Geographic Education (1984). The five themes in geography are Location, Place, Relationships within Places, Movement, and Regions. The advantage of the five fundmental themes in geography is the successful display of the conceptualization of geographical themes into five domains. It may safely be said that these fundamental themes of geography constitute the best framework for the improvement of geographic education ever developed in the history of geographic education in the world.However, it my require careful reconsideration to adopt the basic ideas and the lesson plans of the five fundamental themes in geography into Japanese school curriculum. The original idea of the five fundamental themes in geography was developed to rejuvenate geographic education in the U.S. in which citizenship education is considered the most important educational goal. However, the prescribed courses of study of the Japanese Ministry of Education lay emphasis on the national citizenship education as the most important educational goal.