Distorted Perceptions

For many years, I've believed the way geography is taught in schools is not only counter-productive but actively misleading.

It is true that learning how the world is politically divided, how its borders came about, and what a topographical account looks like, it is as important to show the real size of different countries, once one has integrated and accepted this concept (of "countries") in the first place.

The only ways in which this can be done, according to me, is with numbers (area) or with maps.

I doubt many of us have any real idea of how big 30,000 square kilometers is in reality. I can't even be trusted to judge the dimensions of my windows in an accurate manner...

So maps become the best way to give us a glimpse of reality, inasmuch as that can happen when the subject is so vast and difficult to imagine.

Maps can be beautiful, too.  There are so many versions of a single account of an area, and that provides hours & hours of critical thought, and not only about geography, but about perception as a whole, how the same thing can be portrayed, and what could possibly be the motivation to show something in a specific way, and not in another.

Geography fascinates me because it can open the door to several topics of huge significance in the world.  Its apparent neutrality is also a positive, not only negative, feature of this discipline.  One doesn't feel like one is being indoctrinated or preached to when learning geography--- this can be dangerous, but because of its scientific properties (measurements etc), one can find out or demonstrate other points of view in an easier and less traumatic way, with fewer dogmatic obstacles, and end up reaching a far clearer understanding of the problems which exist in the world today-- political, with regards to population, natural resources, and relative importance each country may have on the chessboard of the various institutions with vague and long acronyms & abbreviations. I believe SCALE helps enormously when it comes to maps. I love them all, but when I look at a standard planisphere, it leaves me with the impression something is missing.

Today, my fav example of how one's point of view can shift and one's understanding expand in 5 seconds is this:

Since the African continent is so so SO often the topic of discussion about population, poverty, starvation, I should like to point out that the population of Africa is 1 billion ppl (2010), fewer than China alone, and with more natural resources.  This immediately makes me think its main problem, then, is not one of overpopulation.  Why aren't we told numbers like population density instead? 

So I go on and start looking for what might be the real problem(s)...

Geography is a v good starting point. One can end up anywhere from it.