The need to theorize to observe the territorial reality of social problems

Abstract

To educate a person you must know what path you want to travel. The purpose of school geography determines a methodology that leads us to the learning of concepts, skills and attitudes that are necessary to explain social problems in a territorial framework. A knowledge that implies participation in civic life, where personal feelings, collective perceptions and evaluations and political and economic strategies emerge. That is why it is necessary to theorize about the lived, perceived and conceived spaces, to know more precisely the factors that explain the problems we want to solve, or at least try. A complex task, since it involves challenging the academic routines that consider geography to be a "natural" and "stable" knowledge, without considering the plural tendencies that define it in its historical process. In this article we want to indicate some explanatory principles that allow us to understand the geographic environment and its implications in the improvement of school learning.