To the Editor:
With respect to Rick Hess’ Jan. 27 opinion blog post, “Do Students Still Need to Learn Geography?”, I appreciate his support for the importance of learning basic geography. That said, to reduce geography to the memorization of basic facts is also problematic.
Yes, it is important to know where cities, countries, lakes, and rivers are located, but that is to geography what spelling is to English literature: It’s just a start. The fun and interesting part is when students are pushed to explain certain spatial patterns (Why do we grow cotton in these areas?), various aspects of human-environment interactions (Why does flooding impact some members of society more than others?), and global connections (How does my consumption of product x, y or z impact people on the other side of the planet?).
I agree with Mr. Hess that students need to know basic information, but sadly this has often been the extent of K-12 geography education in the United States, with many people believing that geography is nothing more than maps and place name memorization. The result of stunted geography education is that many Americans fail to understand how we live in an interconnected world, how our consumption choices may be environmentally unsustainable, or how our ignorance of other cultures leads to foreign policy missteps. In most other countries in the world, K-12 students receive a much deeper geography education. It’s time we caught up.
William G. Moseley
President of the American Association of Geographers
DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, Macalester College
St. Paul, Minn.
