The rain in Spain falls mainly on Ukraine – but there’s hope!
April 2, 2025
The rain in Spain falls... mainly on Ukraine?
The rain in Spain falls mainly on Ukraine as Russia and The United States compete for Ukrainian minerals. Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is wrestling with how to defend its principles over the inviolability of sovereign borders. How will Europe back up its rhetoric without American hardware and, potentially worse, how will it keep economic ties with the US without some degree of capitulation? 20% tarifs for the EU and 10% tarifs for the UK will have unforeseeable and unintended consequences. Currently stock markets are tumbling across the world. Over the next few weeks, we’ll see what happens – but it’s unsurprising that people are worried.
The rain on Ukraine definitely comes with pain.
The Western World’s biggest issue is surely that of debt: public purses from the United States to the Urals and beyond are stretched. Whether we oppose or support immigration, or lean more to the left or the right, this debt problem isn’t going away any time soon; indeed, it may burst with highly unpredictable consequences beyond a rather glib “it wouldn’t be good.”
Without real answers (unless they cause severe economic pain across swathes of society), politicians of all stripes are left with sound-bites and point-scoring. They play with short-term, vote-winning tactics rather than a long-term strategy for stability, let alone for that elusive, infinite growth sought by all in a finite world.
As the United States pursues a different kind of politics and economics, Ukraine has become a lightning rod for many simmering international tensions. The rain in Spain really does fall mainly on Ukraine at the moment.
The rain on Ukraine - is it fascism again?
That's a hard question to even attempt, but one of the biggest bulwarks against the rise of fear and division is education. And its torch-bearers are always those with, it seems, the smallest of professional voices in the political-economic sphere: teachers.
Teachers are the vanguard for all sorts of positive things, just by their very existence: the idea that we can learn, improve ourselves and grow, for example. Yet it’s more than that. Every child will have questions about what’s happening and what it means for them. Answers will come from parents, guardians, friends and, no doubt, social media. Make no mistake: teachers have their undivided attention throughout most of the school day. This is an advantage.
Are teachers up to the task?
In his Unpopular Essays, Bertrand Russell in the 1940s wrote about the Functions of a Teacher. He observed that “the teacher has... become, in the vast majority of cases, a civil servant obliged to carry out the behests of men who have not his learning, who have no experience of dealing with the young, and whose only attitude towards education is that of the propagandist.” It still feels true.
Right now, when many teachers feel undervalued and irrelevant, they are also the most important bastions of hope. They give our children ideas and evidence to debate. They can give our children opportunities and knowledge. They can give our children time and understanding. Most importantly, they shape the way our children assess the world: either with fear and prejudice or with insight and understanding. Ideas are wonderfully dangerous, so we should be teaching them with gusto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. And what about Equity and Morality? And teachers can do that every day!
The rain in Spain ruining schools trips again?
No. There's nothing happening that should stop a school trip abroad. We believe it's best done through a mixture of class-based discussion and practical, lived experience. We’re obviously evangelists for school trips and outdoor learning, but having a lived experience in the context of the school environment is different to a family trip, as positive as family trips may be.
Only a teacher can draw the direct links between what’s studied in the classroom and lived on the trip. Only a teacher can provide the fertile ground to bond different personalities through shared experience. Only a teacher can mediate conflict and fan fires of collaboration in moments of challenge or fear. Indeed, only a teacher can lead the microcosm of social cohesion and community that each class represents. As such it’s never been more important to take classes out of the classroom, whether it be to a museum, a local activity centre or abroad.
As Spring begins, we wish you all an exciting, hopeful run up to Easter.