Mark Enser has been a prolific contributor to TES over the last year, and written a number of recent pieces and books, and has his Teach It Real blog too.His most recent book is the geography contribution to the 'Making every Lesson Count' series. It's been getting a lot of mentions in various places, most recently at the TMGeographyIcons event in Birmingham, where he was mentioned by several speakers.
I bought a copy for the teachers in my Department when it came out, and have now had time to sit down with it and read it.
The book is quite compact and focussed on particular strategies, and the six principles which underpin all the books in the series.
Each chapter has a focus on one element of making your lessons count, and the structure is drawn from the spine book by Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby.
With a book like this, I am always looking for the ideas being geography-specific rather than generic, and Mark succeeds in this. I have copies of both of Russel Tarr's History Teacher Toolkits and these contain ideas that could be adapted for Geography, and I think some of Mark's ideas would work in reverse, and be of interest to teachers with other specialisms as well.
There are some interesting ideas in each chapter, which would be of use for both new and more experienced teachers.
The chapters include some scenarios with people who may (or may not) be based on real situations as a way in to the thinking about how best to overcome the issues they present, and the chapters hopefully provide strategies to 'resolve' those issues and move forward.
Jason Ramasami has provided his illustrations in the trademark style of the series.
Mark has sensibly referenced some of the leading names in geographical education - the role of subject specific scholarship and pedagogy is vital. Early chapters reference Liz Taylor, for example.
It's good to see Mark referencing the good work of the Geographical Association and its journals too.
The chapters are interspersed with case studies from teachers, some of whom I've had the pleasure to meet at various events over the last few years.
I am sure that copies of this book will be purchased for many new colleagues to the profession, and they will take much from it.
Mark has already completed another book 'Teach like nobody's watching', which comes out in October.
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