Apparently it's a long way to Tipperary
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But then I wouldn't know. The problem is that while I studied geography at school for several years, I don't seem to recall ever really learning where places were.
There are several definitions of the word geography, but they mostly boil down to a couple of things: the physical features of a place, and the layout or arrangement of a place. At school, I can remember studying (and being bored by) a great deal of the former, but have virtually no recollection of being taught the latter.
Had I managed to remember much of what I was taught, I could probably tell you all about the weather, population and indigenous species that live in places such as Papua New Guinea, Nicaragua or Peru. But had you asked me, when I was actively studying this at school, if I could point these places out on a map, I'd have been somewhat stumped. In fact, it's only through my own curiosity (and, I admit, the additional research that goes into preparing these blogs) that I could even point you in the right direction today.
All of this leads me to wonder exactly how useful some of the stuff I learnt at school actually is. At sixteen years old, a typical British child of today, had they paid enough attention in class, could probably help you work out the length of the hypotenuse on a right-angled triangle, using the Pythagorean theorem, but would struggle to compose a grammatically correct email about it. In the eleven years since I calculated my last hypotenuse, I can't think of a single occasion where that skill has since come in handy, but I use email virtually every day out of necessity.
I'm actually a huge fan of education. I certainly wouldn't discourage the teaching of anything that is taught—including Pythagorean theorem and what the weather is like in Peru—but I would love to see such things tempered with more useful information. Of a year group of almost four hundred, I don't know of a single one of my school mates who now has a career measuring triangles in South America. I do, however, know of several who struggle to get jobs because they didn't learn how to use a computer, or who constantly find themselves out of pocket because they don't know how to look after their money. It's these little things that make such a big difference in the real world.
It's not that learning the other things is bad. It's not. Anything like that can be beneficial in expanding the breadth of knowledge the younger generations have. It even sets a new potential path of discovery for an interested mind. But, to my mind, all such things should be taken in the context of real life. It is within the realms of further or higher education that they should be encouraged, once a useful educational foundation has been laid.
Incidentally, I know now that it's not that far to Tipperary after all. And in spite of this, I'm still not that interested in what the weather is like there.