About your intro-assignment

Hey, a few comments on your intro-task essays.

First the negatives, and then the positives, and then my comments on how this assignment adds to your knowledge base.

1. A few of you focused only on reflecting on the test results. I.e., you took the test, kept track of what you missed, and then spent time thinking about why you might have missed those questions. However, you have completely skipped the second part of the same assignment, which was to link these reflections to the two essays—one by Wade, and the other by Murphy. Pay attention to the question.
   I tell students in my regular classes that assignments have two purposes: first and foremost is to make sure that students have opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge. Second, it is a preparation for the “real world” where things have to be done in a timely manner, and in required formats. When you omit a part of the question, then you have denied yourself a wonderful opportunity to let the “supervisor” know that you really have done your job.
2. Pay attention to the mechanics of writing. Yes, this is not a writing-intensive course. But, again, think of this as a preparation for the world outside, which is, “nasty, brutish, and short” to quote Hobbes (not the cartoon character!) You will quickly lose credibility, particularly if you are planning to be a teacher, if you exhibit one too many errors.

The positives:

1. It looks like most of you honestly reported your test results, even when it showed that you did not do well. For a faculty like me who gives take-home exams in my regular class, well, I rely on an honors system. Thus far, both in my regular classes and in my online classes I have had no evidence of foul-play, which then strengthens my confidence in my students.
2. It appears that many of you have had no geography classes since middle school. Why is that a positive? Well, that means that we will add quite a bit of value to your knowledge base by the time this term ends. After all, isn’t that a goal of education—to add value?

My comments on the assignment:

It is interesting, even to me, that I teach this course and a few other courses like this. Because, as some of you know really well from my intro in my regular classes, I have no degree in geography. None what so ever.

Yet, I am a neo-traditionalist geographer, as I describe myself. The courses I teach are “traditional” and are not usually the favored approaches—which is what Wade and Murphy write about. Wade and Murphy emphasize the immense value these traditional regional geography courses provide, and I agree with them. Hence, one of your comments, such as this one, does not surprise me at all:

I realized that not much emphasis has been put on teaching regional geography material/courses at the schools which I have attended

However, I do not teach them in the “traditional” modes. For instance, Murphy has co-authored a regional geography textbook with Harm de Blij—the same person whose videos I have included for you. But, I don’t use that text, or any other for that matter, because they are old-school. I would rather experiment, particularly with the phenomenal wealth of information, articles, and even books, that are available for free on the web, and introduce students to regional geography in a route that is more in-sync with contemporary ways of conversations and understanding the world.

Are you still with me? Just checking :-)

One student wrote in the assignment,

It was obvious to me where most of my knowledge about the world comes from. Let’s just say that the easiest question for me to answer was about the television show, CSI.

I totally get this. Which is also why in most of my classes I use videos from the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and the Onion. Because, I think I can facilitate the understanding of the topics using those vehicles—which, by the way, are available free of cost on the web!

Many of you had written about how you had no idea about the devastating earthquake that happened in Pakistan. To me, this again is a fantastic piece of evidence on how the American media and politicians are insanely America-centric. Such an approach worked well up until the end of the twentieth century, but will not work in this century—the problems we face are intensely global. Everything from the current recession to climate change to even the products we purchase has a global dimension that we simply cannot afford to ignore. Again, you are now a few steps ahead of most students who have not had courses about the rest of the world. As one student wrote:

I hope that geography becomes a more important topic because it is important to know about what is going on in the world in order to survive.

I hope so, too.

Don’t think of this as a long email: instead, view this as my “lecture” and this is the point in my lecture when I would ask students for comments/questions. So, email (preferably to the entire class) if you have any thoughts/comments on my points here.