Seeking New Horizons: A Perceptual Approach to Geographic Education

J.H. Galloway is a university professor of Geography at the University
of Toronto.

Castner is concerned about cartographic and geographic education,
particularly in the early school years. This, therefore, is a work of
advocacy, addressed to school teachers and designers of curricula.

In the first chapter of the book, Castner sets the discussion in the
context of “what children can learn” and “what children are
taught” in language strongly influenced by the writing of Piaget. In
the remainder of the book, Castner searches for solutions by trying to
understand how and what we actually see in landscapes, diagrams, and
pictures, and by examining techniques used in the teaching of music,
art, and science that might be borrowed by geography and cartography
teachers.

The teaching of geography and cartography are topics that from time to
time deserve critical evaluation and the infusion of new ideas. Castner,
however, did not seize and hold my attention—one sometimes has to work
through a rather frustrating book. A problem is the style of writing:
the argument does not flow easily, and Castner has the habit of
weakening the impact of his statements by the frequent use of language
that dilutes his ideas.