A Twist of Yarn, a Bag of Stars, and a Bit of Glue

I was reading about the all-important @ symbol recently. I found a link to an article on a blog written by a Jr. High school teacher.

The blog is interesting, in and of itself, but I was drawn to click the link offering an explanation of the @ symbol. Surely, I thought - this little notation is a twentieth century invention. But, who invented it? So, I clicked through and discovered that the @ symbol is anything but modern. According to the content at HP (Hewlett-Packard) where the article sits, this familiar email and Internet symbol dates all the way back to the 6th or 7th century! Who knew? The article is fascinating - and short - so I recommend it. But, I was even more fascinated by this part of it - an explanation of the @ symbol in other languages:

"And while in the English language, we know it as the "at symbol," it goes by many other unusual pseudonyms throughout the world.

• In South Africa, it means "monkey's tail"
• In Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia it's the "Crazy"
• In the Czech Republic, it's "pickled herring"
• The Danish refer to it as "alpha-sign," "elephant's trunk," or "pig's tail."
• The French often refer to it as "little snail."
• In Greece, it's "little duck."
• In Hungary, it's called "maggot"
• In Mandarin Chinese, it's the "mouse sign."
• Russians often refer to it as "little dog."
• There's no official word for it in Thailand, but "wiggling worm-like character."
• The Turks lovingly describe it as "ear."

Moving right along, I somehow (one does not record one's surfing about the net, so I cannot tell you how I got from the article on the @ symbol to Sir Kenneth, but I did) I found myself at a new blog site called TEDBlog, Ideas that Matter in Technology Entertainment & Design. The site is fascinating - it's all about... well, ideas that matter. As I was looking around in it, I discovered a link to a speech given by Sir Kenneth Robinson. This, of course, drew me in because last year I attended a Fortune Magazine conference where Sir Kenneth spoke and I was totally enthralled by him, and his talk.

This talk is, essentially, the same talk. It's about overhauling our education system. It's about teaching our children creativity -- NO! I must revise that. It's about ALLOWING our children to be creative, in their education. Sir Kenneth says such profound things such as: "Creativity today is as important as literacy." He says we take the creativity OUT of our children's education when we do not allow them the privilege of being wrong, once in awhile. In fact, he says, "Be prepared to be wrong if you want to create something original."

He's funny. He's fun. He's so smart. And, he's right. We are doing our children an injustice by forcing them to continually conform to an educational model that is so out of date, it creaks. It groans. The mold is growing upon it all along the edges - and being transmitted to our children's brains! That can't be good. Can it?

Sir Kenneth says that we must accept the gift of human imagination in our children. All children are born with it. It is educated out of them. We must rethink our educational processes. We must accept a new concept of human ecology to educate "the whole being" not just the brain. Include the arts at all levels, daily - not merely once in awhile. Because intelligence is a diverse, dynamic, and distinct thing that human beings possess.

To ignore the gift of imagination is to prepare our ultimate destruction. Those are my words. I hope I am wrong.

You may hear and see Sir Kenneth at this link. Enjoy.