Paula's memories

Paula Richardson was awarded Honorary GA Membership at the GA Conference in 2021 - the Association's highest honour. I am working with her on an event to take place next year which will be launched later in the year.

She mentioned in our discussions that she remembered her first GA Conference. This took place in 1971 at the London School of Economics: the venue for the GA conference for many years.

She remembers meetings in small rooms, up lots of winding stairs, whe she had the chance to hear 'the great and the good' of the time, such as Arthur Holmes.

I hunted out the report on that conference from 'Geography'.

The main theme of this very well-attended conference, again held in the London School of Economics, was Geography in School and capacity audiences were privileged to hear a most stimulating series of lectures. 

Mrs. I. M. Long, in her Presidential Address showed how, at a time of sweeping changes in education, it is still of prime importance to interest children in the work they are doing. She demonstrated a method by which this interest might be gauged over a group of 1800 boys and girls of varying abilities and in many types of school. Professor N. V. Scarfe (Dean, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver), taking as his title "Games, Models and Reality in the Teaching of Geography in Schools", showed how new techniques involving inductive thinking should be used with discrimination to demonstrate real situations, but only after children have employed deductive methods in relation to the real world. In his lecture entitled "Recent Advances in Climatology and their Relevance to Schools", Professor T. J. Chandler (University College London) demonstrated in masterly fashion the circulation of the atmosphere, while Mr. C. E. Everard (Queen Mary College, London) in his paper "Geomorphology in Schools" urged teachers to look always at the totality of the environ- ment and to work wherever possible from real examples. Most informative papers on "Geography Examinations" and on "Geography and Curriculum Development" were read by Mr. B. S. Roberson (University of London, Institute of Education) and Miss Mary Goss (Staff Inspector, Inner London Education Authority). Mr. Roberson dealt with the structure and evaluation of G.C.E. O- and Α-level examinations while Miss Goss drew together and summarized the various aspects of the current changes in the field of education.

Paula aso talked about visiting a school in Farnham and there was a part-time / supply teacher there who drew an amazing block diagram of South Downs, and when she got talking to him it turned out to be Eric Young who said "you may have seen my book" - Young and Lowry of course. The classic text from when I did my 'A'levels. I have a copy in my collection.

Source:

“Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 56, no. 2, 1971, pp. 154–159. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567515. Accessed 31 May 2021.