Exploring the Globe: Approaches to Homeschool Geography
Is geography an important subject? In early childhood education, a lot of time is spent on the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics, and sometimes other subjects, such as history and geography, can be a bit left out. The three R’s, as they are often referred to, are certainly important and warrant a lot of study time. So, why would you want to devote time to geography during those formative early years? How much do kids really need to know about geography anyway? And how do you know when they have enough geographical knowledge?
First, let’s establish why geography is important. Our world today is more and more interconnected, and with advances in technology, this will likely increase even more over time. We are a global world, sending emails and text messages across the entire planet in a matter of seconds, reading a blog written an hour ago by someone on a different continent, and watching news reports as they are happening thousands of miles away. There seems to be a lot of focus in our world on national pride, and while I think it’s good to learn about the heritage of your own nation, we also need to recognize that in this interconnected world we live in, our lives are intertwined with the lives of other people all around the globe.
I cannot speak directly about how schools in the United States are teaching geography these days, as obviously, I homeschool my kids. I hope schools have recognized that the increasing connection between people in our world warrants helping kids establish a thorough understanding of the wondrous variety of cultures and people that come from the many countries across the planet. My knowledge of what schools are teaching mainly comes through two sources: 1) my own experience in public school many years ago, and 2) the curricula I have perused along my homeschool journey. When I was in public school, geography wasn’t actually a course at the elementary level, and neither was history. They were both included under the blanket term “social studies.” This includes geography, history, civics, economics, and culture. That’s a LOT of subjects to cover, and I’m sure that teachers have a tough time covering all of those topics! I admit I dislike the blanket term of “social studies” and prefer to split this topic into its component parts. We have studied geography as an individual subject, as well as history, from the time that my children first started their homeschooling journey. We cover civics when we study the formation of the United States government in our history studies. Our study of geography is broken into two subtopics: physical geography and cultural geography (which is how you will often see it presented at the collegiate level). We study economic systems as we study history, and then during the logic stage (basically, middle school), we add in a course on finance to cover a little more about economics. I have a lot more to say about history studies, but I’ll save that for another blog series. I still have plenty to say about geography!
Given the scope of what I’m going to present related to geography, I won’t cover this fully in one blog post. I admit, I’m not known for brevity (my husband and siblings are probably chuckling if they are reading this). A lot of the curricula I have looked at coincide with my own educational experience; geography is often included as part of a course on “social studies.” Has geography education changed so little in three decades? I don’t know how geography is taught in educational systems outside of the United States, but I do know that the friends I have made from other countries had a much broader and deeper understanding of geography (and spoke a LOT more languages) than the vast majority of my local friends. It would be interesting to learn more about how geography is taught in other educational systems.
How are a lot of geography (or “social studies”) programs organized in the United States? I’m going to call the “normal” approach a bottom-up approach. This begins with first considering the self, then shifts to the self in relation to incrementally larger groups: family, local neighborhood, larger local community, region, state, country, and lastly the rest of the planet. Not every program follows this progression exactly, but many advance from family to community (i.e. doctors, dentists, teachers, police officers, fire fighters, etc.) to state. They also focus on navigating with simple maps. This is often followed with memorizing the fifty states and identifying them on a map (that was in third grade for me). After gaining this skill, the next goal is often working on state capitals, while still continuing to gain a better understanding of maps. As far my own personal experience goes, we also worked on learning counties in our state and had a rather extensive unit on Native Americans in our own state when I was in fourth grade. This pretty much encapsulates my recollections of my experiences learning geography in elementary school. We never actually advanced much beyond studying the geography of our own country. Once we got into middle school, we no longer had “social studies.” We had our first classes that were labeled as history and civics. Social studies materials I have looked at for homeschooling often follow a similar progression: learn about your local community, engage with maps, learn your states and capitals, and maybe learn about some cultures you may encounter in your vicinity.
Even wizards need to know where they live!
Should I use a “bottom-up” or a “top-down” approach?
Now, I don’t have anything against learning about local communities and I definitely think kids should know their states and capitals and be able to understand and use maps. But honestly, I don’t like the bottom-up approach to geography. Why? I want my kids to understand more about the larger world before they try to figure out how to relate to it. Kids think about themselves ALL THE TIME. Organizing geography with the “self” as the frame of reference doesn’t sit well with me. I want my kids to understand how the world fits together and see themselves reflected in other people around the world. Where there are differences, I want them to comprehend the events and experiences that led to divergent ways of thinking and then be compassionate toward all people and interested in how our differences can help us see the world in a new way.
With my global view of understanding relationships between people everywhere, I prefer a top-down approach to geography. This approach starts with learning about continents, oceans, and physical landscapes around the planet and transitioning into the countries that make up each continent. When you study the continent on which your country is located, you naturally learn the states, provinces, or regions of your own country. Then you focus on the state in which you live, and your own city and community. Just like a bottom-up approach, you don’t necessarily follow the path exactly, but the top-down approach is premised on looking at geography very broadly and narrowing your focus as necessary to investigate more about the region in which you live. By the time you have covered this much material, your child is older and has matured more and is better able to envision how their self fits into this larger world.
Why begin learning geography during those early formative years? First, let me start by sharing how much my kids LOVE geography. They are eager to read about other cultures and explore folktales from around the globe. They like to pore over maps and draw maps of their own, both of real places and the imaginary worlds they create when they make up stories. They are intrigued when learning about how different biomes are suited to different types of animals. They actually enjoy memorizing countries and capitals around the world. My oldest son has even taken it upon himself to learn different flags of the world. Honestly, I didn’t ask him to do it! Young children are naturally captivated with learning about other places and people and are generally pretty enthralled with folktales, and those early formative years are the best time to fill their heads with as many facts as possible. A young child’s ability to retain random pieces of information (i.e., “Mommy, did you know that the marching band in Monaco is larger than its army?”) is astounding. Their brains are primed to store all of that information!
My daughter created this map to accompany a story.
My son created this map “just for fun.”
Are you looking for some practical advice to help your kids learn geography? Stay tuned for my next blog where I share more details about how we have approached our geography studies!
