TEACHING GEOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHICAL LOCAL LORE AT THE KOBELIAKY COMMERCIAL SCHOOL IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The article analyses the peculiarities of the educational process and teaching of geography at the Kobeliaky Commercial School of Poltava province at the beginning of its functioning. On the basis of documentary sources, the facts about the initial period of the school’s history are clarified, statistical data on the gender, religious, age composition of students, and the school’s curriculum are presented. The content of geographical education at the school, approaches to teaching, and a brief assessment of the relevant educational literature are highlighted. In the grade I, the focus was on learning the basic concepts of physical geography. Topics on the properties of air, water, and soil were studied in integrated geography and science lessons and included a practical part with experiments. In Grade II, pupils studied physical-geographical and political overviews of Asia, Africa, America and Australia, and in Grade III, they studied physical-geographical and political overviews of Europe (excluding Russia). The course content in grade IV was the study of the geography of the Russian Empire in the European context. The teacher paid considerable attention to the disclosure of cause and effect relationships, classroom discussions, and work with geographical maps. The geographical nomenclature to be studied was unloaded from the names of secondary objects. In general, geography was taught descriptively in general secondary education. In the grade V, students studied the commercial geography of Russia in comparison with foreign countries. The article describes the extracurricular regional studies activities in geography, in particular, excursions, preparation of thematic literary and scientific works.