GEOGRAPHY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

Abstract

“Knowing how to think the geographical space, to be organized and able to fight on it “ its a major saying of Yves Lacoste, showing the importance of thinking in geographical terms. However such task, viewed as a simple one, appears difficult due to its complexity. This article focus some of these points envolved in this subject. Is it really complex to understand and interpreted the geographical space where we live on? Isn‘t this difficult showing the fact that there was a lack in the development of such ability? The answers are affirmative. Thinking the geographical space is a complex task. It is an ability that should start being developed, since early ages, specially at the beginning of the teaching process. It is just the development of this skill that will mark the geographical teaching at primary school (1 st to 4 th levels). And such makes this step quite different from the subsequent ones. The above conclusion comes from an analyses of questions concerned to the: Problems of teaching geography at primary school level; Historical roots of these problems; Paradigmatic evolution of geography subject and the phisosophical foudantions of school praxis; Existing relations among geography subject / geography at primary shool / the role of the state; uniqueness of geographical teaching at first schools levels; the meaning of place as a concrete possibility for human actinos; the space where we live as na expression of the phenomenological approach.