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If you think about these issues in terms of our role as teachers, or people involved in facilitating the learning process, I would imagine that many would agree that our role is not to propagandise the student body, nor indeed to politicize them. It would be laughable to think that we were to suggest that the geography's solutions to life's problems were to come from a particular political perspective (or even worse from a particular party). Our role as educators is to help student acquire the ability to think critically, to examine carefully our predispositions as we seek to understand reality. In a large class of students we are likely to encounter a range of political views, something we should he happy with as a reflection of the free choices of individuals in a free society. This does not mean that our students would not become aware of our own philosophical view of life, while being assured that we respect their own. Seamus Grimes Department of Geography and Centre for Innovation and Structural Change National University of Ireland, Galway