Geoliterαcy: an approach to enquiry-based learning for Junior Cycle Geography students in Ireland

摘要

'Caring thinking' has been described as '... a fusion of emotional and cognitive thinking ... [empowering] students to establish ... compassionate judgements ...' (Sharp, 2007, p. 248). In the past, emotion may have been regarded as a barrier to sound articulation and judgement (ibid.), but it is increasingly accepted that emotions are judgements in their own right (Todd, 2014). Emotional awareness encourages self-reflection and, most importantly, the ability to apply the concepts of perspective, scale and place to various contexts (Davidson et al., 2005). These characteristics are prerequisites for critical thinking in the classroom, a mode of learning which Kenway and Fahey (2011) have termed 'emoscapes':"... the movement and mobilization of emotions on intersecting global, national and personal scales' (p. 187). This mode of learning increases students' active participation by combining their everyday experiences (Firth et al., 2010) with processes operating at multiple scales, from local to global. This ability to evoke feelings and animate individual judgements reconceptualises emotional engagement as a form of intelligence (Kenway and Youdell, 2011).