COUNTYWIDE : 2 Area Teachers Win Geography Award

For teacher Marilyn Renger, history can’t be separated from geography.

When Renger teaches her students at Ventura’s Balboa Middle School about the Civil War, for instance, she stresses how the regional differences between the North and South contributed to the conflict.

In Thousand Oaks, social studies teacher Gregory J. Barker sometimes holds up a lead pencil to demonstrate to his students that geography is important because countries around the world are becoming increasingly interdependent.

That pencil, Barker says to his students at Thousand Oaks High School, is manufactured with the resources of eight different countries, ranging from Brazilian rubber to Indonesian hardwood.

The innovative teaching techniques of Renger and Barker recently won each a Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award from the National Council for Geographic Education.

Only 14 other teachers from the United States, Canada and federal Department of Defense schools worldwide won the award. Renger and Barker will both travel to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic in late September to receive their awards at a worldwide conference on geography education.

Both Renger and Barker said they feel strongly that students need a good grounding in geography to succeed.

“Geography at this point in time is so critical,” said Renger, 42, who is a mentor teacher for the Ventura Unified School District in addition to teaching history and computer classes at Balboa. “We’ve become such a global community.”

Barker, 42, agreed.

But students come into his classes with a very parochial attitude toward the world, Barker said.

“Whatever exists in Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County, is all they know,” said Barker, who also serves as a mentor teacher in the Conejo Valley Unified School District and as a trustee for the Moorpark Unified School District.