Last meeting

Our last meeting of the Geography and Global Dimension project took place yesterday afternoon when we met to reflect on our last two years in preparation for the final funders report. Those of us who have seen in through to the end of the two years have got along really well. One of the best comments of the afternoon came from John, who said that since he'd started to think about his geography teaching as a `geographer' it has made him think that he ought to be trying to think of other subjects in a similar way. History as a historian etc. He also wanted to be able to take part in this kind of professional discussion for other subjects. He still looks back with longing for the five years he spent teaching in NZ) It made me think about my educational visit to Ottawa, where teacher's professional development at a higher degree level seemed built into the system. Generally speaking, getting involved in a higher degree would be the only route where teachers would be able to access high levels of professional discussions. Yet we seem to be going in the opposite direction here in the UK, where it is no longer a requirement to have a teaching degree. As profession we should be much more angry but teachers have been so ground down over the last few years they are spending all their energies simply surviving.

p.s. as you can see I've been playing with images - I've recently come across images on here by Nordic angle, which have intrigued me. I'm not sure I've used the same technique(s) but I might keep playing to see what I can come up with.