When I was in college to become a teacher, there were several instructors I enjoyed interacting with. One of them, Dr. Mike Garrett, was in the geography department, and his classes covering European geography always interested me. I didn’t have the opportunity to take this class, but I saw how, in many cases, he would draw incredibly detailed maps of parts of Europe. I recall looking at his map of the Apennines in northern Italy and feeling quite awestruck by the accuracy, details and overall artistic quality to this disposable classroom adjunct to teaching a one hour lesson.
I remember talking to him about the details of mastering this skill, and asked him about the amount of time it might take to develop this skill, as well as how time he would take to draw a map for one of his classes. On both cases, he said less than you might think…
On this past week I have been covering some of the new technologies available to teachers. The talks I had with Dr. Garrett fit into this idea (at least in my mind). Much of teaching is performance art, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of planning, and there is a real need for some appropriate technical skill. This is true now, and it was true thirty years ago. Only the technologies have changed.
Dr. Garrett’s mastery of chalk on blackboard would seem to show that every technology available to teachers rarely gets pushed by their users (at least as much as they should to master it). I have shown in some associated links about a lot of negative reviews of ‘modern’ technology in the classroom, where, if you look between the lines, it becomes rather obvious that the teachers cited in these articles are using the technology as some sort of a whipping boy. It is also quite obvious that there was no real mastery of the tools presented, only snipes about lack of value they deem it to have (while still being, in essence, sophomores with regard to a deep understanding of the topic).
I had a class with Dr. Garrett, which was about preparation to become a social studies teacher (he was a former teacher…). One week, as one of our tasks in the class, he brought up the idea of practicing to develop the skills to draw a world map on the blackboard in 60 seconds. He had a number of really valid reasons for giving us this task. From his perspective, high tech doesn’t always work, and that having a reasonable backup plan is always a worthwhile thing for any teacher. Also, all of these skills have second order effects, for instance, with the development of greater blackboard drawing skills, one might start to perceive many other graphical tools differently. And since blackboards (and static whiteboards) are still in almost every classroom, this is a current technology to work to master.
As for the 60 second maps, there are some pretty simple tricks to get started. As a first try, come up with as simple a geometric form as possible for the major continents, and then make sure you understand where they would sit relative to the equator, the tropics, and Arctic (and Antarctic) circles. With these two simple tasks done (more than a few times…) you can then start to add in more and more details every time you of draw this world map…from scratch.
To be honest, I ‘m not sure if I will ever really need to be able to draw a world map on the blackboard for any of my classes, but this practice broken down some rather low fences for me to cross. Stated differently, it is worth taking some pains to develop deeper skills in every tool you have in your kit.
