Isn't it Amazing?

Have you seen these photos of the incredible find? I'm loving this comment on the BBC article:

"It will take years, or decades, to get answers, and we still won't get all of them.

We can't just ask questions about this hoard, either - we need to ask questions about how this hoard fits in with everything else we know.

Have we made assumptions elsewhere that aren't right?"

We've just come back from a wonderful holiday in Pembrokeshire, the second year running we've gone back to the same place. This year we spent a lot of time visiting some of the amazing neolithic monuments that the area is so incredibly rich in. Each one we visited filled us with awe - how on earth did the ancient people manage to create these incredible structures without all our *wonderful modern technology*?

We don't really know what these structures were used for, how they were built, what they originally looked like. With all our wonderful modern technology, our great modern intelligence, we just don't know. I do so wish we could all remember this, I wish it would filter into the minds of those who think they have all the answers.

Finds like the one that is chronicled in the BBC article teach us that, no matter what we think we know, there is always something new just around the corner, waiting to turn everything we think we know on it's head.

Education has always been a natural, lifelong pursuit. The ability to question, to look afresh at problems, to try out new theories and disguard them when they don't work, has stood the human race in good stead for thousands of years.

When you explore monuments such as Pentre Ifan, when you see such intricate metal work as that above, you can't help wonder (well I can't anyway) just what legacy we will leave the future. Will we have any ounce of creativity left in us to leave behind such treasure troves as the ancients did, when we have been confined to narrow definitions of what a human being should learn; when we have had the joy and natural zest for live squeezed out of us by a tick box system?

According to a recent DCSF FOI release, the government are not going to allow certain information to be released because some home educators are attempting to harass and vilify Mr Badman. You would think there must be some truly awful things being put about on the internet to cause such concern. Prepare to be horrified.

exhibit 1: photoshopped picture showing Mr Badman reading Mein Kampf

exhibit 2: a 12 second animation created by a home educated child

Creativity and gentle satire are now threats to the establishment? I'm old enough to remember Spitting Image - every week the government had to endure the most shocking leg pulling from those puppets.

I don't imagine Mrs Thatcher spent much time worrying though, do you? Satire has always been a Great British Tradition, and looking at the photos I've posted, so has creativity. And yet, we are in danger of losing both. I shall leave you with a Ken Robinson quote:

"We don't grow into creativity, we get educated out of it."

ETA: and now it looks like Darwin was wrong!