For years now, many schools have had the "integrated curriculum". Children don't have lessons called "Geography" "History" etc... oh no, too old fashioned. Instead, they do projects and topics in lessons with fancy names where - allegedly - these things are hidden in the curriculum and they learn them by some kind of miracle, or by osmosis maybe.

Even where they do have lessons called 'geography' they don't learn anything as useful as the names of the capitals of the world or how to read a map, but instead are told about holes in the ozone layer, the wicked west gobbling up the rainforests and we're all going to be burnt up by global warming because mum drives to Sainsbury's.

No wonder then that this survey is in the news today....... (from Press Association news agency)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More than three-quarters of British children have been abroad - but one in 10
cannot find the UK on a map, a survey said today.
The Heathrow study of 1,000 children between the ages of six and 10 also
revealed that 41% of them did not know that the UK is in Europe.
They found that 78% of the children had been abroad, 48% going to Spain by the
age of 10 and 42% to France.
However, 45% could not find Spain on a map and 36% were unable to identify the
location of France.
The USA was the third most popular holiday destination, with 19% of those
surveyed having crossed the pond - but 42% did not know where it was, and 5%
believing it shared a border with the UK.

But in todays world the questions are more important than the aswers.

_________________
Its not always the biggest and the bestest, its them that make the least mistakes.

Poor geographical knowledge isn't helped by the use of satellite navigation aids (SATNAVS). And travelling inside an over-sized aluminium cigar tube doesn't help expand knowledge of geography either.

Arrive at airport, enter featureless passenger handling area, board almost windowless aircraft, plug-in the headphones and in-flight video entertainment, after several hours of cramped mind-numbing boredom arrive at another featureless passenger handling area - supposedly in another geographical location. What has been learnt? Not a lot. Apart from seeing the sun in the sky at the 'holiday destination', very little has changed. Even a change of language at a new location is no longer evidence of a new geographical location.

I loved geography as a kid, and still do. If I had my time over again I would like to take up Cartography.

At school I found history very interesting but I had difficulty remembering that endless list of dates. Now I realise that history is an extremely important subject to study. It is virtually impossible to understand the present without a good knowledge of history, especially ancient history and its associated arts and cultures. Now I understand why the elite study ancient history, philosophy, and art.

Of course, a good knowledge of geography forms an important aspect to understanding human history. It seems to this old cynic that history and geography are deliberately dumbed down for the ordinary folk because knowledge of these two important subjects provide an important key to understanding the real world of power.