stories

Last week i visited a friend and former colleague of mine, Karin, who had her first baby a few months ago, Tobias. Really funny guy this Tobias, understood my sense of humour too, unlike some adults. :)

Speaking of kids, i was thinking about education after reading Anna Simandiraki's article on the Minoans in Greek primary school education. I've been thinking about this, what is the impact of archaeology as conceived on a global scale, what is the meaning for people. Yea, you can come up with the heritage thing and roots and whatever at a national level, that may have some value but is also pretty narrow. It's the Story of Us as Whatevernationality. More appealing could be that education would allow for multiple perspectives, to allow students to explore the different aspects of the human condition, not as something distant from themselves but as part of their own life. The Story of Us as We Are.

How would you tell such a story? I don't know for sure, world archaeology is quite removed from history as most people know it. It can be very abstract and has a pretty arcane language, which i personally like a lot btw, which takes years of reading to grasp fully. You cannot go to kids, or even teens, with your 'dual-processual model', 'down the line trade', 'galactic polities' and all the other niceties we use in texts without much explanation. Neither do i believe in 'dumbing it down'. My tentative guess is that we ought to try for a new kind of narrative structure, one in which a set of stories about different early civilizations and cultures can be tied together by some larger story that appeals to children or teens. Something that makes it more relevant than getting to hear that this pyramid or castle is very important because it happened to occupy the same bit of land you are growing up in.

Some half-random thoughts this, but there is something to it also.