Maps and Theories Group Activity

Procedure Look at the map your group was given. Come up with 5 questions you could answer using the map. Come up with 5 questions you might want to ask about the area shown, but can’t answer with the map given.

Discuss How can maps be useful? What are the strengths and limitations of the different maps? What cautions or precautions do we need to consider when using maps?

Critical Questions Who made the map? Why? What is it for? How was it made? How detailed and accurate is it? How current is it? When is it appropriate to use it?

An Insight About Maps On a visit to Leningrad some years ago I consulted a map to find out where I was, but I could not make it out. From where I stood, I could see several enormous churches, yet there was no trace of them on my map… E.F. Shumaker described the following experience in his book, A Guide for the Perplexed:

An Insight About Maps When finally an interpreter came to help me, he said: “We don’t show churches on our maps.” Contradicting him, I pointed to one that was very clearly marked. “That is a museum,” he said, “not what we call a ‘living church.’ It is only the ‘living churches’ we don’t show.”

An Insight About Maps It then occurred to me that this was not the first time I had been given a map which failed to show many things I could see right in front of my eyes. --E. F Shumaker, A Guide for the Perplexed, p. 1.

Conclusion The map is not the territory.

So What? What are theories? How are they like maps? How can theories be useful to teachers? What can we learn about using theories from this map exercise?