Geography asks three questions: |
| Still from A Private Universe |
The clip is from a longer piece about the shortcomings of private education in general, and the piece itself misses an essential point by mistakenly describing the topic of seasons as an astronomy question. If Harvard had a geography requirement -- or even a geography department -- the errors pronounced by these new graduates would be less common. It is geographic learning in particular that is missing in the background of these young scholars -- and future decision-makers.
How many people with strong opinions on climate change would perform just as poorly? Far too many, it seems, and it is for this reason that any glee geographers take from this video is short-lived.
May 2020 update: courtesy of Harvard Crimson:
We know that geographic illiteracy is a serious problem. We also know that decisions taken at Harvard almost 70 years ago are part of the cause. The short version is that homophobia was the cause, as shutting down the department was the only way to get rid of Derwent Whittlsey, the brilliant chair of the department when the attack on the department began in 1947. On the 40th anniversary of the events, Neil Smith wrote a detailed discussion of these and other factors in an analysis published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (now called the American Association of Geographers, of which I am a member.)
In an undated article on Education.About, Brian Baskerville briefly describes the factors that led to the closing of the department (though he erroneously uses "preference" to describe Whittlsey's sexual orientation). He goes on to assert that geography remains at Harvard, as each of Pattison's 1964 Four Traditions of Geography can be found in one form or another in various parts of the curriculum. This is a rather "thin gruel" as they say, and a far cry from the systematic study of geography that is required to develop a geographically informed person.
About a decade ago, Harvard tried -- in its own flawed way -- to make amends with geography. Or at least to reclaim the word, if not the discipline itself. The effort is described in an understandably self-serving article in Harvard Magazine, Geographers See Death, Birth and Job Prospects. The article acknowledges but dismisses the claims of homophobia as it tries to build the case that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is both the key to returning intellectual rigor to the field and a necessary part of mending the "hopeless divide" between human and physical geography.
This is all by way, of course, of promoting the GIS program at Harvard. Although it is good to see a significant aspect of our field embraced there, it sadly represents a real missed opportunity. The tools and technologies of geography are important, but they are not geography itself. A conversation I had at Harvard a few years ago with GIS pioneer Jack Dangermond was telling. He had given a presentation in which he offered example after example of geographic principles and patterns. After the lecture, I was hoping that he would lend support to our efforts to expand geography education in Massachusetts. He was shockingly dismissive of the idea. The founder of ESRI is so convinced of the value of his product that he thinks it makes geographic literacy irrelevant. It is as if Word and Excel would make writing and math obsolete (which I suppose they have for some people). He argued that gap in our knowledge of geography would be remedied simply by adding more data to our GIS databases and improving user interfaces.
Whatever really transpired in the 1940s, Harvard remains a drag on geographic literacy.
May 2020 update: courtesy of Harvard Crimson:
 |
| Our own BSU EarthView as shown in the national standards for geography education. Photo: Ashley Costa (Harris) National Geographic |
In an undated article on Education.About, Brian Baskerville briefly describes the factors that led to the closing of the department (though he erroneously uses "preference" to describe Whittlsey's sexual orientation). He goes on to assert that geography remains at Harvard, as each of Pattison's 1964 Four Traditions of Geography can be found in one form or another in various parts of the curriculum. This is a rather "thin gruel" as they say, and a far cry from the systematic study of geography that is required to develop a geographically informed person.
About a decade ago, Harvard tried -- in its own flawed way -- to make amends with geography. Or at least to reclaim the word, if not the discipline itself. The effort is described in an understandably self-serving article in Harvard Magazine, Geographers See Death, Birth and Job Prospects. The article acknowledges but dismisses the claims of homophobia as it tries to build the case that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is both the key to returning intellectual rigor to the field and a necessary part of mending the "hopeless divide" between human and physical geography.
This is all by way, of course, of promoting the GIS program at Harvard. Although it is good to see a significant aspect of our field embraced there, it sadly represents a real missed opportunity. The tools and technologies of geography are important, but they are not geography itself. A conversation I had at Harvard a few years ago with GIS pioneer Jack Dangermond was telling. He had given a presentation in which he offered example after example of geographic principles and patterns. After the lecture, I was hoping that he would lend support to our efforts to expand geography education in Massachusetts. He was shockingly dismissive of the idea. The founder of ESRI is so convinced of the value of his product that he thinks it makes geographic literacy irrelevant. It is as if Word and Excel would make writing and math obsolete (which I suppose they have for some people). He argued that gap in our knowledge of geography would be remedied simply by adding more data to our GIS databases and improving user interfaces.
Whatever really transpired in the 1940s, Harvard remains a drag on geographic literacy.
 |
| Veritas -- Truth |
Lagniappe -- CitiesX
I wrote this addendum in October 2022 -- here I acknowledge learning some valuable geographic lessons at Harvard during the pandemic. In fact, the course I describe below helped me to realize that I am, in fact, something of an urban geographer. Even though the word "urbanization" is in the title of my doctoral dissertation, I never thought of myself in that way before.
We all had unexpected experiences as a result of the dramatic change in our living habits during the global coronavirus pandemic of 2019 to present. At some point during 2020, I responded to an ad for a MOOC -- a Mass Online Open Course -- hosted by Harvard. I had been among the first people at my own campus to teach an online course, and the first to win an award for online teaching. But I had neither taught nor taken a completely open course like this -- something that had been set up and then essentially left alone for students to complete at their own pace.
As I browsed the offerings, I noticed CitiesX: The Past, Present, and Future of Urban Life and decided that this was the most likely to sustain my interest -- despite two strikes against it. Not only is the course offered at Harvard, but it is also housed in economics -- a field that makes ample use of simplifying assumptions that separate it from reality. I had plenty of time on my hands, however, so I took the course, and found that Dr. Edward Glaeser provided a great many insights about the geographies of a great many cities -- I only screamed at the screen a few times over many dozens of lessons.
In fact, the CitiesX video library is a rich resource that I use for some of my own teaching. It includes all of the videos used in the course, organized by location and theme.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment and your interest in my blog. I will approve your comment as soon as possible. I had to activate comment moderation because of commercial spam; I welcome debate of any ideas I present, but this will not be a platform for dubious commercial messages.