This is our 20th issue and the last of the year, decade, century and millennium (there’s a thought for those struggling to teach place value - and I can also recommend our Beat the Inspector column on decimals, page 39). The Millennium Frieze timeline has now brought us up to the present, and our two main features this issue, on spiritual education and on the world’s worsening weather, chime with the theme of this month’s panel of the frieze - the earth as a global village.
“Spaceship Earth” is such an evocative phrase, I think. The notion of the lonely planet journeying through the universe developed with space travel. As the frieze highlights, when the astronauts watched the Earth rise over the Moon, they saw a small, vulnerable planet alone in space.
When your pupils grow up the care of this planet will lie with them. Protecting the Earth will require a large dollop of the values discussed by Gerald Haigh in his article on fostering spirituality in an increasingly materialistic age (page 9). Self-sacrifice and concern for others will have to override selfishness in order to lessen the impact of global warming and other environmental threats.
Diane Hofkins. Editor, TES Primary
