Nick Crane on our 'inner geographer'

As a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, I receive copies of The Geographical Journal, which features research papers, but also covers the RGS Awards ever year, and publishes the Presidential address. Nick Crane's final Presidential address explores the way that the UK's landscape has developed, and explores the existence of our 'inner geographer'.

Nick Crane has written his book on the development of the UK's landscape, which is now out in paperback.
He has some interesting things to say which might be helpful for introducing students to the value of Geography. He references "blue marble".

"We all have a world view. It is one of the things that makes us human.... and we have to have them because, deep down, we are all geographers".

Nicholas describes Geography as "the spatial discipline that helps everyone understand our world".
He refers to the work of several geographers which provided me with a reading list to check out as well. These include Kent Mathewson, who explored the idea of 'geographical competencies' (a link with the work we did on GeoCapabilities and GI Learner as well, both of which connected with this idea) This was also an idea explored by Blaut and others in 2003, suggesting that "nearly all humans acquire the ability to read map-like models" which are called "universals" and allow us to explore and make sense of "geographical spaces".

Robert Sack said "Being geographical is inescapable, we do not have to be conscious of it..."

Nick mentioned the representations of places in early cave paintings, and encounters with animals, and reminded us of Yi Fu Tuan's notion of topophilia, and Geography's "field of care": from our own dwelling to the whole Earth.
Our stories become, in the words of Christopher Tilley become "sedimented in the landscape", and places help us to recall stories associated with them.

Plenty more to explore here...