Both of my kids attended Montessori schools starting in preschool where they studied the flags, capitals, countries and made beautifully detailed maps they would bring home. But that geographical knowledge sadly didn't seem to carry forward into the Elementary Levels and there didn't seem to be many opportunities to review/revisit this knowledge and so much has been forgotten. I was glad to learn about Seterra earlier this year. My middle schooler and I have incorporated Seterra into our homeschool activities and she typically out performs me, perhaps she's remembering things she learned many years ago in preschool?
Yeah! I had forgotten about M. Montessori flag-fixation — I think it's one of her nerdiest traits that's presaged our contemporary culture of "geek chic" (https://youtu.be/0kXxJw1xfEo).
I'm shocked to find out that the geography stuff doesn't carry forward into the elementary curriculum! I'm preparing some thoughts on Scott Alexander's brilliant piece about forgetting in education (www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-theoretical-case-against-education); I might use this as an example.
To be clear, I wouldn't say it doesn't carry forward into the elementary curriculum as a matter of curriculum structure, it's more that the focus and work my own kids did at that level didn't really build upon that or spiral back to it as much as I would have hoped, and thus a lot was forgotten by them. I suspect that the emphasis on retaining the geography knowledge probably varies a lot across Montessori classrooms so I don't want to suggest I'm speaking for all of them.
Lots of good stuff here. Thursday one of my students got 100% accuracy on Seterra's "Top 70 countries"... in one minute and 26 seconds. Which led to some math, and we concluded: wow, fast! It also led me to try, and I needed over 3 minutes to get about 90%.
The cartogram you showed (from the amazing Our World in Data) could be paired with the claim that "kids should know X about Gaza/Israel" to spark a good discussion. Seeing how Israel barely appears in the cartogram, due to its microscopically small population (relatively speaking). Yoda has a famous quote about this, believe I.
Carmen Sandiego has now been remade several times, fwiw, both as cartoons and as computer games. My son enjoyed one of the more recent cartoon versions, and there are still several places I associate with their capsule descriptions from the old Apple II game.
Okay, I actually count four countries in Africa that have changed their name since 1982:
- Upper Volta -> Burkina Faso
- Zaire -> Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Swaziland -> Eswatini
- Ivory Coast -> Côte d'Ivoire (According to Wikipedia, the government made the French name the official name in 1986.)
The two new countries are South Sudan and Eritrea.
I did not know that Swaziland changed its name! Nor the thing about (neé) Ivory Coast. Thanks!
Both of my kids attended Montessori schools starting in preschool where they studied the flags, capitals, countries and made beautifully detailed maps they would bring home. But that geographical knowledge sadly didn't seem to carry forward into the Elementary Levels and there didn't seem to be many opportunities to review/revisit this knowledge and so much has been forgotten. I was glad to learn about Seterra earlier this year. My middle schooler and I have incorporated Seterra into our homeschool activities and she typically out performs me, perhaps she's remembering things she learned many years ago in preschool?
Yeah! I had forgotten about M. Montessori flag-fixation — I think it's one of her nerdiest traits that's presaged our contemporary culture of "geek chic" (https://youtu.be/0kXxJw1xfEo).
I'm shocked to find out that the geography stuff doesn't carry forward into the elementary curriculum! I'm preparing some thoughts on Scott Alexander's brilliant piece about forgetting in education (www.astralcodexten.com/p/a-theoretical-case-against-education); I might use this as an example.
To be clear, I wouldn't say it doesn't carry forward into the elementary curriculum as a matter of curriculum structure, it's more that the focus and work my own kids did at that level didn't really build upon that or spiral back to it as much as I would have hoped, and thus a lot was forgotten by them. I suspect that the emphasis on retaining the geography knowledge probably varies a lot across Montessori classrooms so I don't want to suggest I'm speaking for all of them.
Ah, thanks for the pointer!
Lots of good stuff here. Thursday one of my students got 100% accuracy on Seterra's "Top 70 countries"... in one minute and 26 seconds. Which led to some math, and we concluded: wow, fast! It also led me to try, and I needed over 3 minutes to get about 90%.
The cartogram you showed (from the amazing Our World in Data) could be paired with the claim that "kids should know X about Gaza/Israel" to spark a good discussion. Seeing how Israel barely appears in the cartogram, due to its microscopically small population (relatively speaking). Yoda has a famous quote about this, believe I.
Carmen Sandiego has now been remade several times, fwiw, both as cartoons and as computer games. My son enjoyed one of the more recent cartoon versions, and there are still several places I associate with their capsule descriptions from the old Apple II game.