ABSTRACT
This chapter poses the question of what sort of mentors are needed for what sort of education. Situated within a critical human geography, it suggests that the answer to that question requires that we have an analysis of the contemporary world. The chapter suggests that, at present, geography teachers face a triple crisis of environment, economy and social division. These crises have been developing for some time, but research in geography education has largely ignored them, instead focussing on more ‘practical’ aspects of teachers;’ work. The chapter asserts that this is no longer sustainable, and sets out a tentative ‘typology’ of mentoring approaches for readers’ consideration. This raises questions about what it means to mentor geography teachers, to help them to ‘persevere with geography’ in professional contexts where there is a pressure (sometimes subtle, sometimes not) to adopt generic and pedagogical fixes in classrooms. The chapter argues that the role of the geography educator is to find ways to represent and understand the ways the world works. This will require a sustained engagement with theory. It takes its cue from a comment from David Harvey that: ‘It has always seemed to me to be the role of the educational theorist or teaching-college geographer to grapple with this problem in all its complexity’ (Harvey, 1972, p. 37). Examples are offered of how Harvey’s writings about capital and capitalism can provide a model of intellectual development that can underpin geography teachers’ work.
