Experiencing and Teaching the Geography of Nepal
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RESOURCES ESSAYS expanding curriculum. TWIN has helped fill the breach by Experiencing providing teachers with content, and Teaching materials, and dissemination outlets. Teachers selected for the Geography TWIN were eager to commit of Nepal not only to the rigorous field By Barbara Brower, experience planned for Nepal, Teresa Bulman but also to the ongoing curricu- and Gwenda Rice lum development obligations that followed. DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN Return to Kathmandu. Photo by Helen Sherpa OF TWIN Geography educators have PROGRAM DESCRIPTION ous spine, high and dry desert, state capitals and mountain noted that “[w]orthwhile field AND GOALS wet, green lowland, and produc- ranges, and teachers are being experiences require an extraor- tive inner valleys. A land of given access to the most up-to- dinary amount of planning and n summer 1997, thirteen ele- farmers, herders, and a skyrock- date content and tools of the dis- preparation time,”1 and TWIN mentary and secondary school eting population of city folk, cipline. The result of the was no exception. Planning teachers from Oregon partici- Nepal, like Oregon, struggles to Alliance activity and the imple- began more than a year in pated in a month-long geogra- cope with accelerating change mentation of national and advance in order to bring the phy field program in Nepal. The in society and economy. Nepal, statewide geographic standards partnership together, identify I“Teachers’ Workshop in Nepal” like Oregon, must find ways to has been the development of sites and activities, organize (TWIN Project), funded by the reconcile competing demands programs such as TWIN. affiliations in Nepal, make trav- U.S. Department of Education, for the natural resources that The Oregon Geographic el and accommodation arrange- through Fulbright-Hays Group support its people. Alliance, established and funded ments, select participants, and Projects Abroad and by the Ore- TWIN was planned (1) to by the National Geographic plan long-term elements. gon Geographic Alliance give teachers an experience of Society in 1986, was a key part- Field experience in Nepal, (OGA), Portland State Universi- another place and its peoples; ner in TWIN, both in terms of and development and dissemi- ty (PSU), and the Himalayan (2) to prepare teachers to infuse funding and design. The OGA’s nation of curricular materials Research Bulletin, was devel- their classrooms and curricula purpose is to enhance and constituted TWIN’s two major oped and implemented by facul- with new international studies improve geographic education programmatic components. ty at PSU, Western Oregon Uni- materials and to share their in Oregon, in schools, and in the Project staff expertise encom- versity, and Cascade High experiences with the larger community. To this end, OGA passed cultural and physical School in Oregon. Its goal was community; (3) to engage teach- has directed teacher education geography, field techniques, to expand participants’ under- ers in geography-based field institutes, sponsored teacher geography education, and sub- standing and appreciation of work in the Himalayas, promot- presentations at national meet- stantial familiarity with Nepal. other peoples and places while ing an understanding of the ings, worked with teachers to TWIN was designed for fifteen providing hands-on training in environment and appreciation develop model lessons and participants, twelve teachers techniques of field research for resource use and conserva- model curriculum materials, and and three staff members—the within geography. Group Pro- tion practices in Nepal, and pro- contributed extensively to optimum configuration for the jects Abroad are intended to viding a global context for Ore- efforts in education reform in complex itinerary. As a result of broaden and strengthen interna- gon resource questions. Oregon. pretrip personnel changes, thir- tional awareness and scholar- TWIN was also designed Oregon teachers in particu- teen teachers, one of the origi- ship in liberal arts and humani- to enhance teachers’ geographic lar were ripe for the experiential nal Project organizers, and a ties; a particular target of the knowledge. Since the inception opportunities the TWIN Project PSU graduate student substitute program in recent years has in the 1980s of the twin stimuli provided. Many of Oregon’s recruited in Nepal actually par- been K-12 education. of the National Geographic teachers work at a great distance ticipated in TWIN’s field com- TWIN was intended to Society’s Geographic Alliance from Portland, the only large ponent; all three organizers are introduce teachers to Nepal and Network and the Goals 2000 city in the state, and their access currently involved in posttrip the Himalayas, and especially to federal legislation for imple- to people and resources from development and dissemination the environmental and cultural mentation of national geography other cultures has been limited. of curricula. complexities of the allocation standards, geographic education In addition, Oregon property tax Oregon teachers, regardless and management of natural in K-12 schools has been in the limitations, reducing school of discipline area or grade level, resources in Nepal. Such issues process of a comprehensive funding just when education who had completed an OGA are particularly relevant to many transformation. Teachers’ per- reform has been mandated, have summer institute, were eligible of Oregon’s teachers. Oregon ceptions of geography are no meant that teachers have fewer to competitively apply for shares with Nepal a mountain- longer confined to names of resources to teach an ever- TWIN. The majority of teachers 46 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 3, Number 3 Winter 1998 RESOURCES ESSAYS who participate in OGA pro- KATHMANDU ORIENTATION grams have teaching responsibil- The initial five-day orientation ities outside of geography, was arranged in conjunction including subject areas such as with Cornell University’s Nepal history, English as a Second Project. The TWIN teachers Language, earth science, biolo- stayed in student housing in the gy, chemistry, special education, ancient Kathmandu Valley civics, mathematics, physics, kingdom of Kirtipur, where environmental education, and Nepal’s principal university’s preservice education. TWIN main campus is located. Fed staff planned a wide variety of Nepali meals and ministered to cultural and physical geography by Cornell-Nepal Project staff, field activities, thus ensuring the group ventured from Kir- that teachers with primary teach- tipur to explore Kathmandu fur- ing responsibilities outside ther while also attending daily geography would have experi- Nepali language lessons and a ences beneficial to their levels variety of lectures by Tribuvan and subject areas. faculty and other local experts. The group, accompanied by ORIENTATION AND both professional guides and PREPARATION well informed university stu- Orientation focused on trip dents, visited the major temple goals, travel logistics (health, complexes and historic sites of safety, and equipment), cultural the valley. awareness, fieldwork, and back- In a first exercise in field- ground on Nepal and the work, TWIN teachers were sent Himalayas. Teachers prepared FIGURE 1: Location map: Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park/Khumbu on a transect through Kathman- for the Project by reviewing a Source: Brower, B. 1990. Range Conservation and Sherpa Livestock Management du’s palace square and rabbit- in Khumbu, Nepal. Mountain Research and Development 10 (1): 34–42. variety of materials on Nepal. In Used with permission. warren bazaar. Though govern- mid-May, 1997, the teachers ment schools were on holiday, convened for a one-day general anticipated that most draft pro- example: at the end of the the group visited one of Nepal’s orientation at PSU; in mid-July posals would be radically altered TWIN Project, wash-outs of all notable schools for girls, St. the teachers participated in a upon the teachers’ return to the principal roads cut off access to Mary’s, and Raato Bungala, an four-day orientation at the Mal- United States, reflecting the Kathmandu). By spending most innovative private school mod- heur Field Station in eastern impact of their experiences and of the time in the high moun- eled on the Banks Street School Oregon, a site chosen because it learning in Nepal. After the final tains, TWIN participants were in New York. offered hikes at elevation, thus orientation at Malheur Field Sta- able to escape the monsoon’s For a group with very little enabling the staff to identify tion, participants headed for most forceful effects. Summer experience of foreign travel, problems associated with high- Nepal under the direction of the offered other advantages. It is a Kirtipur at first presented some- elevation trekking. Project organizer most involved productive time for the study of thing of a shock: streets ankle- Participants were given a in planning this part of TWIN. vegetation, slope processes, and deep in flowing mud when it preview of Himalya-related rig- weather. Monsoon also repre- rained, dogs and cows vying for ors and preliminary experience THE NEPAL FIELD EXPERIENCE sents the slack time for the in how to use the field equip- The Nepal experience was study area’s resident Sherpa ment and collect data. It intended to provide a general people, who are preoccupied BARBARA BROWER is Associate ensured, further, that partici- understanding of Nepal and its with tourists in the dry seasons; Professor of Geography at Port- pants would