What Happened to the Textbook Example of the Padang Benggali Groyne Field in Butterworth, Penang?

Abstract

Fieldwork in geography is considered to be “absolutely essential” as it “expresses a commitment to exploration and enquiry, and geography’s concern to discover and to be curious about the world” (Lambert and Reiss 2014). While children may not have had the chance to see much of the world, one of the functions of textbook illustrations is to serve as a typical example through which teachers can take their students to the field for a closer study. This chapter explores the issue of geographic thinking, or its lack of, in shaping how we can select learning resources for fieldwork . The author uses a first-person narrative to develop an argument to explain the importance of using geographical thinking to consider the spatial and time scales, and the changing depositional environment over a few decades when selecting resources to support learning about a “real-world” case, through fieldwork. While textbooks may be published with new editions, the author argues the importance of studying the geographical context through geographical thinking when selecting resources to support teaching and learning beyond the traditional classroom , so that the curiosity to learn and discover about the world is set in the right context.