Friday 24 June 2011

Education and Creativity

Hello to you. Today I'm going to review to Sir Ken Robinson's talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity". I must say that at the beginning, I thought that this interview was boring but I noticed that Sir Ken is right about education. In special, Robinson speaks about the relationship between education and creativity, in his words: "My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status." Clearly in Chile this isn't so, just look at the government's education program.

However, one of the most striking phrases that he said was "I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. If you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make." Simply when we're wrong most people make fun of your mistake  and this becomes part of your life story (an example are nicknames) Phrases like "You don't know to writte/speak/add/subtract because you're dumb" or "This drawing is ugly, you don't have talent for this" do that the kid avoids mistakes because other kids make fun (sometimes ruthlessly) from his/her mistakes, so the error is associated with being silly. 


Other interesting thing is which the author mentions about scientific and humanistic subjects showing that the former are more important than the second: "But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: every education system on earth has the same heirarchy of subjects. Every one, doesn’t matter where you go, you’d think it would be otherwise but it isn’t. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth." A good example is that in Chile people generally believe that the humanistic careers are easier than the scientific or the student of these carrers won't have a good future (in terms of employment and economic) Very well known is the classic prejudice that exists on whoever study arts: If you study arts (music, sculpture, painting, drawing, etc.), you're going to end up playing in the Paseo Ahumada."


As well as Robinson said: "Academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized." Perhaps this is why talent search programs (Talento Chileno, Factor X, Mi nombre es, Yo soy, etc.) are successful not only in Chile but in the world, do you think the same?

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Heute ist...mein Geburtstag (Today is...my birthday)

Achtung/Warning: Perhaps the following written isn't interesting for you because the topic could be uninportant if we consider other topics like education, health, goverment, politics, economy or similars. If you have decided to follow reading this written because you have curiosity or something like that, you'll be welcome to know something more about me, something very important. An any date for everyone, one day more in our lifes; however, for me this day is very special.



After this warning, I welcome you to an important event from me. You know that all days are special but this day (June 15) is more special that other because today...is my birthday! Yes, it's the truth and not a joke. You should be thinking that what I've said is totally irrelevant for other persons, likely the expression is "I don't care" but is important that somebody greets to this person. May seem uninportant but to this person the greeting can be the most important, something to warm the hearth, the soul (or the spirit), something that reminds you aren't alone in this world or in this life. I think that with a greeting is enough, the important is the love expressed in this action.  

Perhaps you think that I ever do parties with many guests and many gifts, but really my "celebrations" are ever in family (12 persons at most) with few gifts and so much love. I can seem anti-social or boring person but for me it's good because I prefer the meetings with few people and not scandalous (in the sense of music at high volume and many people doing many different things) In a nutshell: I prefer quality to quantity.

I have had all kind of birthdays: warm, cold, windy, cloudy, rainy and sunny days, I could say that all seasons have been present in my birthday. And not only the weather but various occasions that I've lived like tests, funerals, shopping, holidays and boring monday. Gifts almost always liked me because I often suggest it though also I like surprises. 

I've said: I prefer quality to quantity. In this day, a greeting with love (pure emotion not a moral duty) is enough for me, a simple "happy birthday" from who are worry for me. Don't worry if you don't greet me today, it's something that is born of the soul/hearth, it's spontaneous. 

Don't worry, be happy.

Avi and me in my birthday greet you for reading this writte.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Youtube: a universe of videos

Hello again! This week I'm very happy because rained in Santiago (the air was very dirty) and I could see the blue sky after a long time, but this isn't  the main topic, is only a short comment about Santiago and its air quality. The main topic is "Youtube". Yes! Everyone knows this online video page, which has videos about singers but it has videos about organizations, social complaints, TV programs, jokes and more. All of us have visited this page in some opportunity searching the video that anyone recommended us and said us "This video is important/shocking" or "This video is very funny/beautiful/touching" In the other hand, some of us have seen TV series on Youtube, series that aren't broadcasted for various reasons: copyright, old TV series, rating, contents, etc. 
When I was younger so much younger than today I never needed to watch videos on Internet (before 14 years), but when I was 14 years old my interests were music, painting and PC games (like Tomb Raider, Need For Speed, etc). At that time, I browsed searching videos about my favourite singers and bands (The Beatles, Metallica, Stratovarius, Iron Maiden, Rammstein, etc.) and the Google results showed me this page. I was very happy because I could see a great number of videos and I didn't need to wait the TV programs about music (which were and are few in Open TV, also they are broadcasted very late at night). I could watch videos anytime and the artist  or the TV series (cartoon, anime) that I wanted. It was a dream made truth! 
Since then, I visit Youtube almost every day (before in the Secondary School, I visited it everyday in the afternoon) to watch musical videos, "Piñericosas" and parodies like "Hitler learns", although currently I visit this page in the weekends, holidays and when I have free time because my career takes long time (5-7 hours in a day or even more time) However, though I have little time, even so I visit Youtube because isn't equal to hear the song or to watch the video. Also, many people use this page to express their opinion (parodies and similars) about politics, economy, art, family, society and much more topics that I invite you to discover. You know the URL direction: www.youtube.com