Garry Simmons taught a series of lessons on Africa to 6th form students to improve their understanding of the continent and reasons for poverty. Student knowledge improved but challenges remained, showing the complexity of issues. Simmons realized teaching African diversity, history, politics and economics was very challenging but important to overcome stereotypes. Further curriculum development is needed to better teach these "dark" topics.

1. @garrysimmons
Head of Geography, Bethany School
MA student, Institute of Education

2.  “I’d say history is a minor factor.”
 “The DR Congo – that’s French!”
 “Africa has very high temperatures which
makes it difficult to grow crops”
 “Education systems are equally poor across
Africa with very few universities”
 “It’s the governments’ fault that African
economies are not branching out into
secondary, tertiary and quaternary industry”

3.  Lack of knowledge – an opportunity for
disjuncture
 Charles Rawding’s #gaconf12 session on “Keeping
up to date with subject knowledge”
 An interest in learning and wanting to understand
how students learn Geog – Constructivism
 Tony Binns and Etienne Nel’s #gaconf12 session.
“Africa: Diversity and development” I realised I
knew little about this diverse continent
 An interest in curriculum making

4. • Understanding the reasons for the development
gap. Why does poverty still exist in the 21st
Century?
• A focus on African LDCs.

5. Distance from
experience
Trevor Bennetts Attitudes and
Complexity
(2005): Progress values
in Geographical
Understanding,
IRGEE 14:2 Cognitive
abilities and
skills
Progression in
Geographical
Understanding
Abstraction
Breadth of
Precision
contexts
Making
connections

6. • Diagram from Potter et al (2012): Key Concepts in
Development Geography. London:Sage

7. • Economics + diversity + politics + history (Depth
PLUS breadth)
• Tremendous diversity of opinion as evidenced by
BBC World debate. Diverse political and academic
perspectives
• The range of poverty definitions e.g.
HDI, GDP, Social indicators, national or individual.

8. • Case Study of Sixth Form students at my School:
9xL6th and 3xU6th.
• Prior knowledge – Written task, Focus
group, questionnaire
• Sequence of three lessons – Colonial
Period, independence, 21st Century Challenges
• Post learning – questionnaire, written task, semi-
structured interviews.
• Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data.

12.  Successes:
 Understanding clearly improved (Questionnaire
40 to 80% correct responses)
 Students better understood the exploitative
nature of colonialism
 Students better understood why independence
was a false dawn.
 Students’ misconceptions about climate and
natural resources were challenged and overcome

13.  “Western countries are, in a way, what made
Africa poor”
 “You can’t have a stereotyped view of Africa”
 “I don’t think poverty is caused by one single
reason. I think it’s a mixture of multiple
ones...each one has a knock on effect.”
 “LEDCs use oil resources to develop
themselves”

14.  Challenges:
 Environmental determinism is entrenched in
many of my students
 Students didn’t fully understand the debate
about the efficacy of foreign aid.
 Student didn’t fully understand the nature of
capital flows.
 Students only partially grasped the hegemonic
influence of economic, political and technical
power.

15. • I didn’t expect the combination of
political, historical, economics and geographical
diversity to be so challenging for students (and for
me).
• Due to complexity I wasn’t able to spend enough
time on how to bridge the development gap –
although I did tentatively look at some of the
macro ideas.

16. • There is still a shocking ignorance about African
diversity. Does this ring any bells from other
Geography teachers?
• Little is known about African places, nations and
recent histories. The continent’s marginalisation from
globalisation extends to my geography classroom -
and perhaps to others as well?
• Little is known about the historical colonial period and
Britain’s role in the formation of Africa.
• Little is known about the real nature of the
exploitative economic and political power that exists
in the world – this power powerfully shapes human
geography.

17.  I (and we?) need to teach more about the
‘dark’ continent.
 There is an opportunity for some innovative
curriculum development at all key stages

18. • Bennetts, T. (2005) Progression in geographical
understanding. IRGEE 14 (2) pp112-132
• Binns et al (2012) Africa: Diversity and
Development. London: Routledge
• Potter et al (2011) Key concepts in Development
Geography. London:Sage
• Why Poverty.net website
• Twitter @GdnDevelopment (Guardian)
• Twitter @askwhypoverty

22.  “I feel I am better informed and better
educated as a result of these lessons.”
 “I found having Africa as a case study really
helpful”
 “I believe it’s important to understand why
poverty exists in Africa. We need to discuss
how to resolve it.”
 “It’s important because it links in to other
things we’ve been learning [synoptic]

23.  Any questions?
 How would you take this research forward?
 @garrysimmons – please do get in touch.

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