Why Geography Should Be Taught as a Separate Subject

Why Geography should be taught as a separate subject

The science behind geography can be considered as the oldest of all the sciences. Thus, geography is considered the “mother of all sciences” because studying other people and places led to the exploration of other scientific fields.[1] Since geography is a broad subject, teaching it separately from other subject matters is very important. Our country’s problem of producing geographically-illiterate graduates is due to our current educational policies which consider geography as a subject falling under Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies).

When I was in grade school, I had no much knowledge about geography. All I knew was that earth has different bodies of water and various landscapes which was only a small part of our lessons in Heograpiya, Kasaysayan at Sibika (HeKaSi). Because of these too limited geographical facts that I knew, I had to struggle and study harder when I took my secondary education to cope up with my teachers’ lectures on this subject.

As a part of our high school curriculum in Araling Panlipunan, we were taught about Philippine geography and history during our first year; Asian lands and past on second year; and the world’s geography and history on our third year. The main problem of my high school years was that my AP teachers, I found out, were not graduates who specialized on the subject that they taught and still teach until this school year. One of my teachers was an education graduate who took Filipino as her major subject, another specialized in English studies. In my opinion, this was the reason why they were not able to emphasize what we should really know about geography. When the class asks a question, some refuse to answer in reasons I did not know.
In the implementation of the K to 12 Basic Education Program, the Department of Education modified both the elementary and secondary curriculum. Sibika at Kultura (for Grades 1-3) and HeKaSi (for Grades 4-6) have both been...