Shalampax Speaks

You would think that students on a miserable little island, such as Shalampax, with nothing to see and nowhere to go would be interested in learning about the wider world. However, if you think that about Shalampaxian students you are wrong. Our students generally show a complete lack of interest in geography class.

Leakycondom, the new geography teacher at the Shalampax school, thinks the problem is not the students, but rather the dry way that geography was taught by her predecessors. Leakycondom is determined to change that.

(Non sequitur aside: They never admitted it, but rumor has it that Leakycondom’s parents broke with Shalampaxian tradition when they named her. Rather than naming Leakycondom after something they saw after she was born they named her after something they noticed with regret after she was conceived.)

Leakycondom plans to liven up geography class and, hopefully, spark geographical interest by using music to teach that subject. “This is an iPod generation,” she noted. “The way to communicate with youth today is through music. And, as long as you choose the songs carefully, there’s a lot you can learn about geography through song lyrics and titles.”

Leakycondom noted the following examples of geographical information that can be gleaned from music:

• One of the most famous songs in the musical My Fair Lady teaches us that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Not many people would know that had it not been for that song.
• The song I Left My Heart in San Francisco teaches us that there are a high number of cardiac mishaps in that city.
• The song Oklahoma! makes it clear that there are elephants in Oklahoma and that those elephants have to guard their eyes if they don’t want to be blinded by the corn stalks.
• From the title of Last Train to London we learn that there used to be trains to London, but they’ve stopped running.
• From America the Beautiful we learn that mountains in America are all purple. We also learn that the plains in America are covered in fruit. (Either that or the lyrics were written when there was considerably more bigotry directed at homosexuals and the lyrics are telling us that a great many gay people live on the “fruited plains.”)
• Chicago, Chicago informs us that toddlers run amuck in that “toddling town.”
• From the song New York, New York our budding Lotharios, eager to begin their sexual conquests, learn that if they can make it there (in New York) they can make it anywhere. They’re not likely to ever get to New York, but it gives them something to dream about.

“And these are but a few of the many geography-based songs,” concluded Leakycondom, “So I’m convinced that music is the way to instill knowledge of and a love for geography in our students.”