Arena symposium: equal opportunities

The Internet is a hospitable medium for distance learning. Some geography educators fear that distance education confronts the discipline with a moral dilemma, however. One, in particular, acknowledges some of the advantages of distance learning, but contends that it cannot convey the sense of place that is 'the essence of what it means to be a geographer'. This paper is concerned with the morality of distance learning. In particular, it considers educators' obligations to deliver quality education, and to make it as widely accessible as possible. The paper stresses that the key distinction between distance learning and traditional resident instruction is not the mode of delivery, nor is it the distances in time and space that separate students and teachers. Rather, it is that distance learners are a qualitatively different, older population, with different educational needs from traditional on-campus undergraduates and graduate students. The paper argues that geography educators have a moral obligation to serve lifelong learners, an obligation that should take precedence over our allegiance to conventional notions about what constitutes the essence of our field.     

Connecting high school and university teachers in national and international contexts: perspectives from the 2012 Bangalore workshop of the AAG-CGGE

This paper focuses on the Center for Global Geography Education teaching workshop held in Bangalore, India, in March 2012 which served as a collaborative forum linking geography teachers in secondary and higher education in the USA and India. It considers the inclusion of the Advanced Placement Human Geography teachers from the USA and the building of global teaching content in collaborative teams as a useful way to connect geography teachers across institutional contexts. Based on a survey of workshop participants, it also highlights some of the issues that need to be addressed for further strengthening of high school–university linkages within national and across international contexts.     

Evaluation of the Work-Place Cooperative Project in Geography Degrees at the University of Leeds

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the context and objective of a Work-Place Cooperative Project (WPCP) established in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds in 1995. The project, in part a response to the changing graduate and employment market in the early 1990s, presents students with issues with a geographical dimension from business, commerce, industry and environmental research. A number of examples from the WPCP are presented.     

Comment

Abstract

This article examines the attempt to modernize the Italian system of education which is being made by the present government. This policy should be seen in the framework of the general attempt to meet the requirements imposed by the European Union on its members (the Maastricht treaty), and more generally to meet the European need for homogeneity among systems of education, matching the Europe‐wide labour market already in place. In the past, the Italian system of education missed a number of opportunities to keep up with the changing experiments in other European countries (especially at post‐secondary and university levels); therefore the amount of change required is now substantial. The measures taken by the Minister of Education (who is also Minister of Universities and Scientific Research) attempt to decentralize the decision‐making process, give more autonomy to individual institutes, and leave the central public administration (the ministries) the roles of coordination and evaluation. This model has been followed by the majority of European countries. Its impact on the not so dynamic Italian system of education will produce interesting debates and confrontations.     

The agricultural potentialities of the Transvaal

During the past decade retail warehouses have become an important new element in the retail structure of many towns and cities. This paper outlines the character and geographical pattern of retail warehouse operations in Scotland and discusses some of the planning issues raised by these developments.     

国外纺织品文物保护修复与研究现状

简要介绍了国外纺织品文物保护修复领域在保护修复理念、保护修复技术、科学研究方法以及高等教育和培训四个方面的一些情况,对了解国外纺织品文物保护修复领域的现状,和对我国纺织品文物保护修复研究工作的发展具有一定的启示和借鉴意义。     

解读“施教”类遗产

在中国的“全国重点文物保护单位”中有一种发挥着独特作用的遗产,从其诞生之初起就承担着传播知识、完善人格、服务社会的功能,即“施教场所”,包括书院教育类、大学教育类、革命教育类三种;这些遗产所发挥的作用不仅仅是物质的,更在非物质层面具有深远意义,它们不仅呈现着中国教育脉络、体现着中国教育精神,而且极大丰富了当代文化建设、助推了当代文化旅游发展,因此需要倍加珍惜与审慎利用.     

Idées and mentalités; the case of the catholic reform movement in France

The connection between Godwin and Fénelon has traditionally been restricted to the famous and controversial moment in the first edition of Political Justice (1793) in which Godwin presents an example of the interdependence of rationality and ethical action. This paper argues, however, that Fénelon, and particularly his political and educational treatise Telemachus (1699), plays a significant role in a number of Godwin's subsequent fictional works. Employing Telemachus to explore the theories of education presented by Godwin in the various editions of Political Justice and The Enquirer (1797), this paper explores the manner in which Godwin's version of the Enlightenment transcendence of pedagogical power comes up against its limits. Reading this issue in relation to Godwin's argument, in ‘Of Choice in Reading’, that literature remains outside of socio-ethical corruption, three of Godwin's major novels are shown to demonstrate that Telemachus provides the chance for meta-textual moments in which the appeal to reason (the reader's rational capacity or ‘private judgement’) is at once reflected upon and produced. Reading educational theories and problems into Godwin's major fiction in this fashion helps to clarify aspects of the Godwinian (or ‘Jacobin’) novel.     

西部民族特性与民族政策教育

本在剖析西部民族特性的基础上,重点计论了西部民族政策教育的对象和应突出解决的重点问题;同时强调,教育不是万能的,要实现我们预期的目标,各级有关部门还必须正确处理民族关系中的人民内部矛盾,最大限度地化解消极因素。这也是考察各级干部执政能力和执政水平的一项重要内容。     

The school of love: Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls

This paper examines Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls in light of sources that reveal the educational culture and intellectual activities of informally organised women's religious communities in northern France, Flanders and other regions associated with the beguine movement. What emerges from this new approach is the Mirror and its author's unambiguous didactic intent – a fact long overlooked in the scholarly literature. Rather than an elitist work with no practical purpose beyond personal, prophetic vision, this paper argues that Marguerite's book engages in debate with contemporaries to show them the imperative for moving beyond epistemological conventions in common currency, while providing them with a set of teachings to do so. As such, both the book and its history provide crucial evidence of beguine religious training, the acquisition of knowledge and the transmission of knowledge amongst networks of women religious, and indeed, much further afield.