A geography elective for 8th grade students will come to WMS next year.
Mr. Miller, the future geography teacher at WMS, expressed his reasoning for becoming the geography teacher at WMS. Mr. Miller said, “My first 15 years I taught geography to the 7th grade class instead of civics so when they took it away it was nice to get a fresh start on something new. But now it’s kind of cool [in] my last few years of teaching that I can go back to the subject that I started with. I can retouch upon the [things] that I taught before because I absolutely miss it.”
Mr. Miller also expressed his reasoning for why he thinks it is important for students to learn about geography. He said, “Because they need to understand where things are on Earth. I’ve had students who thought New Jersey was a continent and it’s not good. It helps when you’re discussing things overall just to understand where things are on the globe, it helps to understand why certain things are happening and it helps you get a better grip on just about everything else you are doing in terms of government and everyday life.”
Mr. Miller expressed his hopes for the geography elective curriculum. Mr. Miller said he hopes it focuses more on the basics like using a map and a compass as it is only a marking period class. He also said that he wants students to be able to use actual maps like a “doomsday preparation type of thing, like if suddenly you didn’t have your phone and you’re just out in a forest with a map and compass could you figure out a way to get back to where you need to be. That’s why I hope it’s more of the basics because I want students to walk before they can run.”
Mr. Panko, the principal of WMS discussed why there is going to be a geography elective at WMS. He said that it is to “give kids more options [as] geography used to be a requirement at our school, however they got beyond it because they wanted something different for the social studies but now they’re bringing it back as an elective because they need to know about the world around them.”
Mr. Panko also expressed how he thinks having a geography elective will improve performance in other classes like history or civics. He said, “I think they’d learn and have a greater understanding of the world with different places, what places interact with one another, what [led] them to civilization then when you go to your history classes, you will have a good framework.”
Mr. Panko discussed what is going to stay the same or change in how geography is taught in the elective instead of history classes. He said he thinks there is going to be “more focus on certain places because of specific books, how people came into those areas and why they came into those areas and also how they were made based upon the natural world like mountains and rivers and also those different [landforms].”
Bishoy Eshak, a student of WMS, discussed why he would want to take the geography class elective at WMS. Eshak said he is really into history and likes geography.
Eshak also discussed why he thinks people would want to take the class. He said that people would want to learn more about the world and the countries if they want to travel.
