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Authors List

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Geography Edition of HSSE In this special geography issue of HSSE Online, we acknowledge geography teachers’ role in geographical education by inviting classroom practitioners to share their reflections on issues in geography education research. As noted by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1959, “It is no exaggeration to say that the 10,600 teachers […]

Past Issues

27 Mar 2023

Volume 4, Issue 1 2015

Geography Edition of HSSE

In this special geography issue of HSSE Online, we acknowledge geography teachers’ role in geographical education by inviting classroom practitioners to share their reflections on issues in geography education research. As noted by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1959, “It is no exaggeration to say that the 10,600 teachers in all our schools constitute the most influential group of 10,600 people anywhere in Singapore” (cited by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Education, at the MOE Promotion and Appointment Ceremony, 2015). What teachers do in their classrooms has profound implications for students’ learning and development.

This collection of articles, though centred around geography education, is largely applicable to a wider humanities education audience as it deals with disciplinary value and purpose, the organisation and prioritisation of curricular content, and teachers’ roles in negotiating these various issues and perspectives. Zainab Banu Hassan’s article applies the curriculum making model advocated by the Geographical Association in the UK as a means to evaluate curriculum resources for developing students’ geographical thinking. Liu Zhen considers the applicability of a conceptual approach to geography as a means to organise geographical content for teaching, while Paul Seah reflects on Young’s (2010) powerful knowledge and the debates within geography education about whether pupils’ experiences should be part of the formal curriculum. Ng Mui Leng’s article examines the debates surrounding whether the study of the earth’s systems sits better within a geography or science curriculum, as well its value in the education of students in Singapore. Finally Peh Shi Yun considers the relationship between teachers’ geographical knowledge and their classroom practice within a wider analysis of other types of powerful influences on what they do.

The final two articles in this issue address issues that have great relevance to geography teachers in their practice. The article by Norfarahin Binte Abdul Rahim and Wu Bing Sheng highlights the importance of disaster education in countries like Taiwan that suffer natural hazards frequently, and assesses the success of disaster prevention literacy in an elementary school. The article also reveals how fieldwork and qualitative and quantitative analyses help geography teachers analyse, interpret, and represent in-situ data. The last article by Adelina Chandra and her colleagues is invited to share their regional study in Southeast Asia. The authors explore impacts of tourist facilities on the transition of Gubugklakah Village, Malang, Indonesia. Their findings reflect how local people benefitted from the growing number of tourists and how the new tourist facilities are geographically expanded along the popular attraction sites. Geography teachers can be inspired by the fusion of qualitative and quantitative analyses in fieldwork study.

Tricia Seow
Bing Sheng Wu

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Baildon, Mark (National Institute of Education (Singapore)) Chelva Rajah S N (National Institute of Education (Singapore)) Afandi, Suhaimi (National Institute of Education, Singapore) Keywords History Classroom Design Introduction

Baildon, Mark (National Institute of Education (Singapore))
Chelva Rajah S N (National Institute of Education (Singapore))
Afandi, Suhaimi (National Institute of Education, Singapore)

Keywords
History
Classroom Design

Introduction
In 2017, then-Minister of Education, Ng Chee Meng emphasized the need for joy of learning in schools. In his parliamentary speech, he commented, “We believe in nurturing the joy of learning so that every child can discover his interests, grow his passions, and love what he is doing. School should not just be about doing well in exams. It should be an exciting place to acquire knowledge and skills, where learning is fun and with the necessary rigour” (Ng, 2017, para. 11). For him, the joy of learning is not merely about having fun in the classroom; it should be balanced with academic rigour. Since then, this has become the prevailing view of the Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore, and reinforced by the current Minister, Ong Ye Kung in the 2018 Schools Workplan Seminar:

We know that students derive more joy in learning when they move away from memorisation, rote learning, drilling and taking high-stakes exams. Very few students enjoy that. It is not to say that these are undesirable in learning; quite the contrary, they help form the building blocks for more advanced concepts and learning, and can inculcate discipline and resilience. But there needs to be a balance between rigour and joy, and there is a fairly strong consensus that we have tilted too much to the former. Our students will benefit when some of their time and energy devoted to drilling and preparing for examinations is instead allocated to preparing them for what matters to their future (Ong, 2018, para. 29-31).

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Introduction Iconic American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash recalled in song a boyhood experience of watching his parents monitor flood conditions at their 1937 Dyess, Arkansas, home

Introduction

Iconic American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash recalled in song a boyhood experience of watching his parents monitor flood conditions at their 1937 Dyess, Arkansas, home by counting the number of front steps the water had risen; 1 step = 1 foot (0.305 m):

How high’s the water, mama?

Five feet high and risin’

In introducing his 1959 Columbia release, Five Feet High and Risin’, Cash noted (AZLyrics, 2000-2015):

My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord.

We couldn’t see much good in the flood waters when they were causing us to have to leave home,

But when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land.

The following year we had the best cotton crop we’d ever had.

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