Tonight, we had an open evening to encourage the kids the year after next to come to our school.  Each year, we are told to have 'something different' from last year on display.  For some reason, one department was making balloon-crowns tonight.  I cannot for the life of me think which department this was; I have certainly missed the part of the school year where they teach kids how to do this as part of the syllabus.  No matter.  I am sure I am just missing the fact that we actually do this once the kids get to us at age 11.

Once I got home, we watched a cooking show.  And the chef baked a cake on the barbecue.  Not in the oven.  No.  On the thing in the garden.  A smokey cake.  At one point, he said that if you did not have a barbecue, you could use the oven.  What I want to know is, why wouldn't you use the oven?

I think the answer to this is the same as the reason that teachers spent time this evening pretending we use balloon-making skills in secondary schools - the need to make it 'new' and 'different' and 'fresh'.

This, I feel, rests on a false assumption.  For some reason, there seems to be this daft idea that every time anything happens, all of humanity has experienced it, all at once.  It also seems to take as it base point that humans, once we have all tasted/listened to/tried out that same thing, are never going to want a repeat of that experience.

Like Hell, I'm not.

Taking the balloons issue as an example, I am almost certain that the nine year olds walking through the school are different each year, so I am not sure why they would already be bored of the things the last lot of nine year olds saw.  They do not share a hive mind.  (At least, I hope not.  If it turns out nine year olds really are like those kids from Village of the Damned, then we should just be able to teach one kid at a time and the rest of the year group should know it.  Even if we have to split by gender and have one girl and one boy, this would be a lot easier than the thirty-plus we have now.  As a bonus, they wouldn't have to waste time in lesson gossiping about last night or next weekend or the fair which has come into town, as they would all share a mind and would know everything they had all done.  A great saving.)  This lot of kids have not, in fact, seen the displays and tasks from last year.  They could see the same things as last year's lot and be perfectly happy.

Obviously, we would have to update it a bit, sometimes, otherwise we would be showing off ICT on stone tablets or something, but change for the sake of change strikes me a ludicrous.

The barbecue cake is the same thing.  Cooks need to make us buy their books and so they need new recipes, but there are plenty of good tips to be given without bringing in strange ways of baking for the sake of it.  (I realise some people probably love the idea of this cake, but it struck me as a gimmick.)

With cake, I daresay many of us have tried cake before.  Maybe even a maple glaze walnut cake, or whatever particular type it was, but, with cake, I feel that people are happy to repeat the experience.  When I have a decent piece of cake, I want the same type of thing again another time.  Thinking 'Well, I enjoyed that a lot.  Now I must make sure never to experience it again.' seems a bit odd.

From the way the kids at work go on about the fair each year - which I am fairly sure does not change from decade to decade, yet alone annually - people really are happy to do the same thing again, if they have enjoyed it.  Or have been told they enjoyed it by their louder friends.

I'm not saying we should just do the same thing over and over and over again, but maybe we should at least consider that 'different' isn't always the better option.  Not automatically.