Is geography brainwashing?

In the old days, geography lessons taught pupils about maps, oceans and mountains. Today's topics are poverty, global warming and the evils of multinational companies. Hilary Wilce talks to the experts and asks whether things have gone too far

When Richard Mead's daughter Sarah came home with her A-level geography homework on trade and development, he was shocked at the materials she had been given to work with. Or rather, the materials she had not been given. Most of the photocopied web page printouts came, he says, "from people like Oxfam and Friends of the Earth" and propounded a strictly one-sided view of the issues. "The whole idea came through that multinationals are a bad thing, and that free trade is terrible. Well, there are some powerful arguments against free trade, but in many ways it's better than the alternatives."

As someone who had been on the World Bank's staff for five years, he knew the issues were much more complicated than this, and was angry Sarah was not being given the full story. "It seems there's this whole soft received wisdom now, based on fairly simple nostrums. But students need to know that there are no easy answers, and that most decisions involve trade-offs and have unforeseen consequences."

However home-schooling on the subject was not productive. "She saw me as a capitalist pig," he admits ruefully. While Sarah says: "He made it too complicated. I did not need to know everything. I just needed an opinion. That's what you have to have to write an essay."

Has geography become propaganda? Are geography classrooms places now where students are taught to bow down before the altar of environmentalism, while learning that multinationals and Western governments are the devil incarnate? Even worse, are they learning these things at the expense of good old-fashioned skills like map-reading, and knowing where places are?

Yes, says Alex Standish, a graduate researcher who recently quizzed 50 geography teachers in the South East about the subject, discovering that most now believe that teaching values and attitudes is more important than focusing on facts and skills. He found that 84 per cent believe it is now more important to teach about environmental issues than it was in the past, while 68 per cent agree they are teaching fewer facts than before. Standish also looked at national curriculum requirements – and textbooks – and concluded that pupils were being "greenwashed" by simplistic and skewed approaches to complex issues.

Kirk Leech, a geography teacher at Centre Academy, in London, agrees. "Geography as I learnt it at university is far from what we are encouraged to teach today. It used to mean atlases, floods and rocks. Today pupils are taught about species loss, global warming and citizenship. Geography has become an ethics lesson and a means to moralise about the world." Although, ironically, he points out, turning the subject into "a morality play" has resulted in fewer wanting to go into geography teaching, and a shortage in the subject.

Such views have caused a stir in the normally placid world of school geography. "Politically correct" geography has been lambasted in the right-wing press, and hotly debated on morning radio. Many teachers are angry at what they see as a slur on their teaching skills, while others are unrepentant about their stance. Chris Durbin, geography inspector for Staffordshire, who runs a geography website where the issue has been causing waves, says that some teachers simply feel: "What's the point of doing geography unless it is to make the world a better place?"

And disputes about content, he points out, crop up in all subjects. "Teachers always have to make choices. You get the same kind of arguments in English and drama. My personal view is that it's essential to teach pupils to weigh up the arguments and if you don't, you are going to get lower performance in exams. I also don't think teachers have much influence on students' views once they get past 14."

David Lambert, chief executive of the Geographical Association, says Standish's arguments are confused. "He seems to be saying that if we teach children just the facts, they will somehow magically grow up with an understanding of the world. But what facts? You can't teach everything, and by choosing which facts you teach, you're already making a selection. He also avoids the issue of the facts being loaded."

Geography teachers, he argues, spend huge amounts of time presenting alternative viewpoints, whether about "where to site a new Tesco's", or more global issues. In fact, students have to be able to weigh up opposing arguments to do well in geography exams.

Yet how even-handedly this is done inevitably depends on the teacher. "At GCSE we studied tourism in Antigua," says Bethany Edwards, a Surrey sixth former. "All I remember is how big companies made a lot of money from it, and how tourists were ruining the mangrove swamps."

However teachers point out that even when they present all viewpoints, green arguments are often the ones that stick in students' minds. Another problem is that the liveliest source materials often come from environmental quarters. Worksheets from Monsanto on how genetically modified crops help curb hunger, or the International Monetary Fund on what to do about the debt crisis, are noticeably thin on the ground. And teachers agree that relatively few of them have first-hand experience of the developing world – one teacher notes that his views on economic development became "far less idealistic" after a year in Ghana.

But Rita Gardner, director of the Royal Geographical Society, says the geography curriculum clearly states that knowledge of facts and processes must underpin the development of understanding and opinions, and that it is "nonsense" to say geography teachers aren't giving pupils this.

"The survey was based on a very small number of schools. Most teachers are very aware of the need to develop pupils' skills, and put alternative arguments."

The RGS is poised to launch a new website, "Geography in the News", analysing current affairs in their geographical context. "Obviously it's always important to have good information presented in an apolitical way," says Gardner. "But in the end it comes down to the way teachers take on their responsibilities."

However Standish, who is now studying for a PhD in the United States, says his findings are prompting much-needed soul-searching in the geographical community.

"I was surprised that so many teachers didn't recognise the promotion of values of environment, cultural sensitivity, and other citizenship issues as counter-productive to the development of free-thinking individuals. I was also surprised how many teachers were prepared to accept an agenda which is anti-development and seeks to preserve tradition. But from the responses I've had, I think more geography teachers are now willing to look critically at this."

education@independent.co.uk