Emphasise the glamour of geography

Many educationalists are very much opposed to the decision to drop history and geography from the junior curriculum. On history, many a wise philosopher has said that we cannot know where we are going until we know where we came from. “Those who do not learn from the past,” said George Santayana, “are doomed to repeat it.” And the key word there is “learn”.

But it’s dismaying, too, to drop geography, which is such an essential part of understanding our world and environment. Geography, if properly taught, can also have real glamour – hearing of those “faraway places with strange-sounding names”.

Geography brings vital knowledge, but it can also stimulate the imagination, conjuring up exotic images about the Road to Samarkand, the Trans-Siberian train journey, the word-picture of ‘Arabia Deserta’ or sailing through the Amazon. It’s great to stimulate a child’s interest in the wonders of the world around her.

On the more practical side, Tim Marshall’s book Prisoners of Geography explains with stunning lucidity just how vital geography is to understand international politics and economics from the viewpoint of where we are placed on the map. Life doesn’t look at all the same from Belarus or Brazil or Brazzaville.

To have a concept of why these perspectives are so different you must have some grasp of the geographical context of actual maps.

Modern geography is often about climate change and the environment, which are important. But the subject is itself so multi-faceted, and can contain both a poetic and a prosaic side, that surely it is of benefit to every primary school child.

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Whatever happened to moderation?

I think it’s a terrible idea to impose a medical test on pregnant mothers to check whether they have been smoking. Yes, it acknowledges that the unborn infant is deserving of protection, but it also makes pregnancy more of a burden, and a set of hurdles to surmount, instead of representing it as a blessing.

I also believe that imposing ever more tests and standards on pregnant mothers can lead to more abortion, erecting a kind of bar of perfection around a natural event. Even already, too much perfection is expected by young couples in their 20s and 30s – their most fertile years – when they’re considering parenthood.

They feel everything has to be in place before they can start a family: the house must be perfect, the nursery painted and the pregnancy must be faultless. Anything less than ideal, and better not have a baby. I’ve known cases of women being so worried because they drank a glass of wine or smoked a cigarette they wondered if they shouldn’t just terminate and “start again”.

By contrast, a respondent on Twitter said that when she was pregnant in Spain a few years ago, and under a huge amount of personal pressure, her Spanish doctor told her that it was better for her to have two or three cigarettes a day – since she had been a smoker – than to be in a state of desperate stress.

She took his advice, felt calmer and the baby was just grand.

Medicine once advised “moderation in all things”. Now it’s turning to a counsel of perfection in every human situation. And in every human situation, there is always an element of chance.

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Saints alive!

Now that our masters have suggested that religious images should be removed from hospitals what might be the next target of state secularisation?

Religious names might be a possible marker. Why not take the ‘St’ from St Stephen’s Green? Or St James’s Hospital? Why not abolish St John’ Hospital in Limerick? Why not ban St Francis’s Credit Union? Even St Bernard from Dunne’s Stores might fall under the prohibition.

They could eradicate the moniker of Trinity College Dublin, named in honour of the Blessed Trinity. They could abolish wayside shrines, which they will argue have no place on the state’s highways.

They could take the ‘St’ out of St Patrick’s Day itself. That might be awkward since St Patrick is now a worldwide ‘brand’ which helps to bring investment to Ireland and boosts the egos of the politicians who travel to promote the brand, using the shamrock – that very emblem of the Holy Trinity itself.

St Patrick stays. Just about!