Week 4 Readings

I absolutely loved reading the article "Introducing the Cartographic Masterpiece" by Pierce Lewis. Maps hold a close place in my heart, largely because my grandfather always had a map in his lap wherever we went and would frequently pull one out whenever someone mentioned a specific place. He never learned to drive because of deep-rooted fears, leaving that privilege for my grandmother, but on every drive, he carried a relevant map with him in the passenger seat, pointing the way and detailing things he saw on his lap which matched the passing scenery. Whenever anyone in the family planned a trip, we always called him, and he would dig out an appropriate map from his vast collection.

I find great satisfaction in the fact that out of eleven grandchildren and many more great-grandchildren, I am the one who received this legacy from him. Every trip I take finds me with a map in my lap in similar fashion, although admittedly my husband probably rolls his eyes more than my grandmother did because I talk more than my grandfather did! His passion carried over to me, and my inherited cartographic enthusiasm led me into a degree in geography.

I am profoundly pleased with my ancestral zeal, and this is why I enjoyed reading this article. Upon finishing its reading, I immediately went online to find out how to purchase these two maps by Thelin & Pike and Raisz. Despite Lewis' portent of the doom of the Thelin & Pike map, it is indeed still available for purchase and for free download at

http://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2206/

and the Raisz map is available at http://www.raiszmaps.com/,

though neither at Lewis' stated 1992 prices! At the Raisz map website I also found a quote from Pike about Raisz's map, and I must say I agree there are no maps quite like his. As beautiful as I find the USGS map, I especially love the artistry of Raisz's. Here's the quote:

"Earth Scientists generally agree that the hand-drawn landform maps of Erwin Raisz are classics of the cartographers art. His large 1939 (revised for the sixth and last time in 1957) map of the old 48 United States, in particular, must rank as a national treasure. There really are no other maps quite like these, and I dare say there will never again be anything else like them."

Richard J. Pike, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA (quote found at http://www.raiszmaps.com/reviewn.html)

One quote from Lewis in "Introducing a Cartographic Masterpiece" struck me forcibly: "Flatlanders and orophiles will look at the two maps differently" (297). It is important as geographers to know that our geographic orientation and perspective are largely influenced and tainted by where we were raised and where we live and what we prefer. We look through glasses with a certain shade of biased geography. I personally have never lived in a place that didn't have abundant hills and mountains within a stone's throw of my window, and I can only know places like the Great Plains through media. This is my bias...Lewis has labeled me an orophile! In this we must be cautioned. We must do as Lewis said of Sauer in "Learning from Looking," and "inculcate habits of mind--open-mindedness to new questions, resistance to creating neat formulae to explain the world, flexibility of mind to take the world on its own terms, intolerance to intellectual shoddiness, and a catholic interest in the tangible world."

I really enjoy reading the "Presidential Address" articles. Hart's address last week and Lewis' address this week are inspiring as a geographer, and they help me to understand exactly what geography could and should be. I found a similarity between the two. Both presidents pointed out the need to find out what the public wants from geography and then meet that need. I agree with them and their solutions, but I think they both neglect one solution which is, in my opinion, more important than anything: getting more geography into the public education system. Neither discussed the public education of geography to schoolaged children at all. I think school kids don't know geography because teachers don't know geography and administrations don't know the importance or applicability of geography. Geographers need to get their hands dirty in the school systems, becoming "missionaries" to the geographically uneducated. Here are some of my ideas:

1. Write proposals to the schools about the necessity for more geography at all levels, proving to them that geography matters.
2. Create easily implemented curriculum for teachers, both for a year long class and for shorter teaching units.
3. Explain to science and history teachers how geography relates to them and why it's important.
4. Offer to school districts to train their teachers how to incorporate geography into their discipline during Teacher In-Service training days.
5. Create a university-level geography class for Education majors that teaches them how to teach geography to students.
6. Offer and advertise continuing education courses about geography for teachers, etc.
7. Become science teachers, get hired, then propose to the administration to create a geography class...and teach it for all it's worth.

I personally had only one geography class in all of my years of school, and it was only a quarter long (not even a semester). That means that out of 13 years of public school education, I received ten weeks of geography. Sure, I had social studies in elementary school where I learned the state capitals, and I had science where we learned about a few animals and their habitats, but I never had anything that pulled it all together like geography does. If the AAG wants to increase public awareness of geography and "give them what they want," then they'll have to make it usable and easy for the school systems to incorporate.

Now, off my soapbox...

I found fertilizer for my project in the article "Learning from Looking," particularly when Lewis tells about Kniffen and his belief that "common houses are 'cultural spoor,'" from the idea that "the commonest material objects possess the strongest cultural meaning, that material objects inevitably display meaningful geographical patterns that can best be revealed by mapping them and that one was unlikely to discover either meaning or pattern without meticulous field observation of innumerable individual objects" (245). I also took note of how Lewis analyzed Bellefonte, Pennsylvania because in studying Carson City for my project, I will need to do a similar study, though not as broad and in-depth because of time. I know Carson City is not as small of a town as he was describing, but it still has a small town feel to me as a resident. Lewis said, "Spirit is an intangible thing, and because it is hard to measure, many geographers and would-be social scientists have been loath to talk about it. But one must talk about it--the genius loci of the town" (344). I want to incorporate this into my project.

In "Cultural Geography" by Jeffrey Smith, I noticed something that has come up a few times in other articles as well: geographers in general had been neglecting urban studies and focusing more on the rural, but now they are finally shifting to study the much-needed urban areas more. I can see why someone would much prefer the rural over the urban--it's less messy, it has fewer problems to solve, and solutions seem easier.