Psyduck, Pikachu, Geodude and Blastoise. Get your tongue around those if you dare, and then tell me about their elements, and their stage of evolution. No, we're not studying geophysics in our academy. It's just Pokemon mania, and it has gripped our second-year boys with a vengeance. There are at least 150 Pokemon characters and it's currently cool to watch the TV programme, read the Pokemon books and most importantly of all to collect the Pokemon cards.
Card trading is at its briskest before morning prayers, the brokers advise on the best exchange deals and nimble fingers check their merchandise with the agility and dexterity of skilled croupiers. The weird-sounding names trip off their little tongues with casual effortlessness and remedial pupils, who find simple diagrams perplexing, identify these cacophonous characters with astonishing ease. The mind boggles.
Meanwhile in primary schools throughout the land the begging bowls are out again and teachers are frantically collecting the Indo tokens, trimming them, counting them and pasting them onto cards in the vain hope of reaching an impossible target in order to qualify for a free TV set. And all the time we are lining the pockets of the already megarich Dr A.J.F. O'Reilly, and forfeiting our daily read of The Irish Times. How about that for abstinence and altruism.
With the advent of Lent, the pupils, too, are drawn towards the virtues of temperance and even total abstinence. It's fashionable, in a surreal kind of way, to be "off" sweets and crisps and other goodies. Like adults, however, the spirit is more willing than the flesh, and like legal eagles, they find all kind of loopholes. Certain bars are permissable, and gradually the law is circumvented and even abolished.
Their child minds are unfazed by the plight of their brothers and sisters in the Third World. They are amazed that the annual income in a far away country is little more than that in their savings account. But, like the young man in the Gospel, they are unwilling to share their wealth with their less well-off neighbours. It's not that they are mean and selfish, it's simply that they are the products of the Celtic Tiger economy and instinctively are aware of the importance of looking after number one.
As well as which, there seems to be a theory abroad which believes that, despite what the Bible says, you can serve God and Mammon. And our pupils are buying into this idea with every Pokemon card they trade. As the theme song says: "Our courage will pull us through; you teach me and I'll teach you Pokemon".
